Director Uwe Boll has made quite a few films in the last few years, nearly all of them dismissed, disgraced and disowned by moviegoers, and with good reason. They stink. Boll has gone on the defense, saying that those who criticize his films -specifically “BloodRayne”- haven’t seen it. Well, I’m sure that there are some on the net that are like that. But what about those folks who have seen ‘House Of The Dead’, where the actresses research into their characters was playing a video game, and the horrible hackwork with ‘Alone In the Dark’? He says he’s getting better. He also says people aren’t giving him a fair chance. Fair enough. I’ve seen ‘House Of The Dead’. I’ve seen ‘Alone In The Dark’. Now, “BloodRayne”. Is “BloodRayne” a step up for Boll? Yes. Is it better than his previous films? Yes.
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Oh, don’t look so surprised. You knew sensei Seagal would come out with another DTV action flick, and you also may have guessed that I would be first in line to rent and watch it. I am a die-hard action film junkie, after all. I also await the day when Sensei would get his stuff together and make a decent action film without the usual crooked CIA and NSA agents, without his’s character having been ‘a company man’ and some fairly decent action and an attempt at some sort of story. Sadly in “Shadow Man”, it is the same old story, and thus I have to wait a little longer.
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A while ago, I saw a cartoon picturing John Wayne in heaven; lying facedown, bashing his fists on a cloud and sobbing inconsolably. Next to him stands Saint Peter, telling another angel: ‘He’s just seen Brokeback Mountain’.
But it is more likely that Wayne responded to Brokeback Mountain with a smile of recognition. Because he starred in Red River. And Red River, that stunning, adventurous Western about the first cattle drive from Texas to Kansas via the Chisholm Trail, is One Big Gay Love-fest.
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Although Dial ‘M’ for Murder does not have the morbid touch of Rope, the overall creepiness of Psycho or the technological advancements of Vertigo, the film remains one of Hitchcock’s best. The film begins with a woman named Margot (Grace Kelly) eating breakfast with her husband Tony (Ray Millard) then cuts quickly to her with her lover Mark (Robert Cummings). Through clever casting, Grace Kelly’s character is never seen as an adulteress but as a woman who is in a marriage that is no longer bound by love.
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Sarah Jessica Parker, who stole my heart what seems like many eons ago in Sex and the City, is pretty much establishing a career after the successful HBO series with roles in mediocre rom-coms. A couple of months ago none other than Jonathan ‘Woss’ was very excited about Parker’s part in The Family Stone. Being under the assumption Ross would not lend himself for some good old bribe, I was eagerly looking forward to see this flick, also considering its rather impressive cast including Diane Keaton, Claire Danes, Rachel McAdams, Dermot Mulroney and Owen Wilson.
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Once upon a time, not too long ago, around the late 80′s to mid 90′s, there was a surge in action stars on the big and small screens. There are several folks on the internet who feel, like most of that generation of action stars, the best days are behind them, and the majority of pictures they do nowadays goes right to the video shelves. One such action star, Jean Claude Van Damme, so much as appeared in two pictures a year, back in those good old days. Strangely, unlike Steven Seagal or Dolph Lundgren, Van Damme’s DTV flicks of late turn out to be low budget decent action efforts. Second In Command is no exception.
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The Disney-Jerry Bruckheimer cash flow that is the based on an underdog true sports story has once again come up in what appears to be an annual event. I don’t mind the basic formula so much, but this trend seems to run downhill. Even though I enjoyed “Remember The Titans”, I found myself disappointed in last year’s “Miracle”. Now here is ‘Glory Road’, a well meaning film about the surprise success of the 1966 Texas Western Miners in college basketball, and it is really sad that the best parts in the entre film are the newsreels.
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Some people turn out to be better at things they did not initially start out doing. Let me illustrate this using Sofia Coppola. She acted in all three Godfather films (the first two as a child), courtesy of daddy Francis Ford. The third Godfather installment featured a truly horrible performance by Sofia. After her failed acting attempts, Sofia decided to start producing, mainly for TV. She also got into writing screenplays. Eventually this was complemented by aspirations to direct. The result, as most of us know, were the truly breathtaking films The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation.
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Sometimes I don’t understand it. It’s not supposed to be this way. Direct to video sequels to theatrical genre films, especially a film helmed by Paul Verhoeven (who is missed behind a camera), are not supposed to be any good. But “Hollow Man 2″ is not as bad as you might think. Truth is, it’s actually a decent effort. Someone made a halfway decent DTV sequel, and that someone is Claudio Fäh.
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