Jakealope Reviews

Junkie (I) (2018)

Not Bad for a Low Budget Over the Top Crime and Drugs Flick

[4/10 · 7 April 2024]

I am suspicious when the other reviewers give a film a 1 or a 10. I am sure most of the 10s were connected with the movie and most of the 1s were slamming it for being over-the-top and cheap. It was an over-the-top and cheap movie but it had some charm and kept me amused. The spunky red headed female junkie turned avenger June Taylor was an OK character but over-the-top. She kicks her needle habit in like 3 days and then becomes raring for action. Tim Russ, the black Vulcan from Star Trek Voyager directed and played the head villain JD. The most over the top actor was Sheriff Corbin, Christian Kane, who was allegedly fighting the drug plague in his town but seemed questionable. Yeah he was massively over the top too.

The plot was convoluted and its various twists were kind of lame which showed its bad writing. June's old dealers kidnapped her brother which provided the story's motivation. The story had a lot of shoot outs where some of them made little sense. Add an improbable escape from almost certain death for our heroin-less heroine.

The movie was picked up by Amazon Freevee where I just watched it, which is hardly a home of good movies. But in spite of its inherent cheapness and melodrama, I still liked it.

Killing Them Softly (2012)

Lame Pseudo Intellectual Slimebag Criminal Fest

[3/10 · 12 November 2023]

I like George Higgins books and movies made from them like "The Friends of Eddy Coyle". He mined the Boston MA crime scene and atmosphere very well. But this movie was a clunker and I don't think the source book about the hitman Jackie Cogan was to blame. The that book is decades old than the movie, so it wouldn't have had the Bush Obama 2008 recession loan scam subtext that marred the movie in it. It's all based on some low level mobster using two sleazy cons to rip off a mob backed card game.

Yes they tried to match the local mob "depression" caused by one of their card games getting ripped off by some hoods with the big recession of 2008 caused by the bad sub prime mortgage loans. I mean what kind of mob organization in a big city wouldn't be able to weather one of their poker games getting raided or ripped off? The movie was shot in some post Katrina parts of New Orleans, that being a prime location for cheap movie production, which also gave it a depression look, They had this character called Driver played by Richard Jenkins who was supposed to represent a newer more professional style to mob management. He drives a newer car while everyone else drove old early 70s Detroit irons like Buick Skylarks and Olds Toronados. Mind you this movie is set in 2008 Boston where such old iron would have rusted to flakes by then.

This bad movie roped in some class actors in it like Brad Pitt, Ray Liotta, Scoot McNairy, Ben Mendelsohn, James Gandolfini, Sam Shepard etc. Which made it seem worse like they were all slumming it. Were they that desperate for work too? The script has the hitman finger the guy who ran the card game Trattman played by Ray Liotta. Trattman had nothing to do with the ripoff but it had bad optics because it happened to one his games before. That was signified in some brutal beating some mob thugs administered in a rainy street to poor Ray. That was followed by an artsy sort of slow motion car to car shooting followed by a crash between the victim's car and two other vehicles. That was the first death in the film, administered by our titular hit man Jackie Cogan played by Brad Pitt. Why this artsy sort of slow mo death was supposed to be significance escapes me. You'd think these alleged pros could've have checked out Trattman's finances to see he didn't come up with a load of money right after his game got ripped off to clear him?

Then add the subplot of the other hitman. Mickey whom Jackie wanted brought in to help him waste one of the victims who knew Jackie personally. Mickey, played by James Gandolfini, was a drunken crude lout who crapped out and had to be rejected by our pros. They did this by staging some beating of a prostitute that would get Mickey's parole revoked. That was totally lame considering how the mob wouldn't use the law and the possible reaction of the dangerous Mickey once he got released. Then there was the other death of the mobster who instigated the theft by shooting him on a street full of newer apartment units in the evening with a loud shotgun. And Jackie is supposed to be a pro?

The last scene was really lame. Jackie wants $15K per hit based on Mickey's rate, but our mob pros only want to pay him $10K/hit or $30K based on their usual hit man's rate. Here they overlay some 2008 Obama speech about how we are one nation forged out of many free people. This causes Jackie to launch into some cynical takedown that the US is all about individuals and their greed followed by a denunciation of Thomas Jefferson as a slaver who had sex with one of his slaves. IDK there is a lot to be cynical about the US in general but since when has the mob and professional killings been professions that attracted the idealists?

Barefoot (I) (2014)

Choking on Saccharine and Schmaltz

[3/10 · 9 June 2023]

This has got to be one of the cheesiest rom-allegedly-coms of all time. Okay Jay Wheeler played by Scott Speedman is the black sheep of some rich New Orleans family who lives in LA. He has to mop floors in a psych hospital at a job he has to hold to make probation happy. Dr. Bertelman played by JK Simmons is the nice guy doc who tries to steer Jay right. But Jay has enough money to go to a strip club nightly, drink, carouse and pay rent on a LA apartment. Then he owes money to some bookie over his stupid betting too who wants to waste him if he doesn't pay up.

Then he gets an invitation to his brother's wedding in New Orleans and sees a chance to hit up his rich parents to pay his vicious bookie off. So he wants to find a nice date, a nurse, to bring home to show his parents he straightened himself out. But the nurse in question thinks he is scum, like the rest of us. Even his naked pole dancer women friends laugh him off. So this super naive waif Daisy Kensington played by ever cute Rachel Evans Woods shows up at the psych ward since her crazy mom kept her shut in the house all her life and when her mom died she had no where to go. The movie is named based on her going barefoot because of her dislike of shoes, whcih makes so much sense in low latitude places like LA and New Orleans where the sun can turn the pavement burning hot. Being barefoot is a sign of saintly simplicity I guess.

So naturally she is attracted to sexy Jay and follows him out of the locked ward she was placed in. So he hits on the smart plan of co-opting her as his "nurse girl friend" to fool his parents but first takes her to his favorite strip dancing club for some god awful stupid reason. Where her good natured stupid self gets her into supposedly funny situations with the denizens of that establishment. Then it is one stupid scene after another on the plane to New Orleans, at the wedding, in front of her family and among the guests whom many have a super low opinion of her "boy friend". See he was sleeping with the wife of one of his dad's business partners which caused his dad to lose a lucrative deal. Then she spazes out in front of his family which causes Jay to first confess to his ruse about his girl friend and alleged administrative job then decide to split by stealing one of his dad's cars, a goofy looking mobile home. So begin part 2 which was a stupid road trip across SW America replete with stupid chase scenes involving his dad's low performance mobile home. Of course he is so inept to even get the thing's toilet working correctly. So the movie plods along in this vain where they are being pursued by the cops for various inane reasons only to end up back in LA where Jay redeems himself and he and Daisy declare their love for each other finally, It was just a silly screenplay with one contrived scene after another that was only redeemed partially by the lead cast's talents. It was pure cheesy sitcom sort of plotting all the way. But if you are looking for a feel-good sort of movie with a romantic plot, you can do worse than this. OK I get it, in an age full of shockingly crude graphic nonsense people want a nice simple love story. But does it have to be so stupid?

The Accountant (2016)

I'm Not Very Impressed.It's a Dexter Knock-Off with "autism" Worked in

[4/10 · 3 June 2023]

Yeah the accountant is supposed to be an uber smart autistic kid and his nutso uber Army dad converted into a lethal disciplined killing machine like the little girl in "Kick-Ass". In which both movies shared the same level of unreality. I like Ben and Anna and this movie was well made, but if the basic story is plain silly, it is like a cool sport car but its frame ready to give out on a pot hole. For one the plot was just too complicated with JK Simmons and his coerced FBI agents trying to follow up the comic book struggle of our autistic hero vs the corporate gangsters who seem to keep hiring him because?

Ramsey: The Vandy Case (2021)

Cheesy Noir with Social Justice & Sex Addiction Pablum Mixed In

[2/10 · 23 April 2023]

Obviously based on the title they are trying to make a series based on the seedy unshaven ex-cop private eye named Ramsey. Ramsey and the actor who played him are not great but passable. The supporting cast only gets worse. Okay it is set mostly in New Jersey across the river from the BIG APPLE, and since a lot of NYC cops live in that area, it is acceptable. But the film which was boosted by the Paterson NJ and the State of NJ film bureaus just reeked of Jersey mediocrity. The dead cop in question reminded me of.a younger. Angelina Jolie when she played a NYPD flatfoot in.the "The Bone Collector". The titular victim Sarah Vandy was an ex child TV star and a wild as in promiscuous girl whom the NYPD didn't really want. Right off the bat she gets whacked by a couple of unknowns in a car while she's walking her beat on some random crummy looking Jersey street filling in for NYC.

So her sister Michaela hires our.grizzled and unkempt Kevin Ramsey to find her real killer because she doesn't trust the NYPD. Of course there is bad blood between the NYPD and ex-cop Kevin Ramsey who ratted on a partner who beat his wife. There is some lame butt macho ranting between him and some cop mugwump who gets more involved. Michaela sends Ramsey all around.to investigate leads. So he finds leads but nothing conclusive. But he and the sultry mixed-up grieving Michaela end up spending a night in bed in some after 9 PM TV, still with her top on sex in her double bed under the blankets. Ironically the best scenes from a technical POV were shot in her apartment and while Michaela was no standout, she added something. But then we got all this crying from our gumshoe hero about his sex addiction and he goes to his PI buddy Mason Rivers for help. See Mason is the chairman of the local Sex Addicts Anonymous group when he is not helping the families of dead black career criminals sue the NYPD. Coincidentally he is involved in this case way deeper than he lets Ramsey know, like he was the one who taped that above NYPD mugwump's tawdry affair for the victim; which Sarah used to blackmail her way in the NYPD. Then Kevin finds some black h00r and her p1mp to come to his Jersey house so he can debase himself after they refuse to do business with Kevin because he's an ex-cop.

Ok I am going to give you the spoiler soon, the stupid twist based on both gumshoes' sex addiction and the effects that had on both their daughters. See Ramsey went strong and while welcoming Michaela to his back yard fire pit to drink long necks, no wine here, he refused to have sex again with the confused grieving woman who also had a bad encounter with her family at her sister's wake. Then Mason Rivers show up to throw his two cents in and nothing happens until BANG,, someone shot poor Michaela and she is bleeding out. Mason chases down the shooter and ta-da, it's her daughter Teri, who also murdered Sarah because her "sex addicted" dad was doing Sarah after he finished his blackmail taping for her. But wait, Ramsey's own obnoxious angsty daughter Katie is Teri's wheelwoman for the first murder, because she too was all angry over her dad's affair that caused the divorce.

So we get a soliloquy where the two weepy gumshoes blame these crimes their rotten daughters committed on their own sex addiction.

Oh did I tell you about the #BlackLiesMatter tie in too? I guess they had to cover all the SJW bases. But for all the feminist chest beating, we never found out what finally happened to the wounded Michaela like did she live.

Hey I am not telling you not to watch it. For all my slamming of this flick, it is a watchable movie. But it took me 5 sessions on Amazon streaming to get through this 2 hour bloated movie.

The Man in the High Castle (2015–2019)

Last Season Was a Real Letdown

[7/10 · 6 February 2023]

Of course not having enough source material from the original but not very long novel didn't help. But then again the other three years did fine with the same handicap. But in season 4 they had to get all woke and subsequentially silly.

First off, they introduced the BCR, or the Black Communist Rebellion, some Noir Panther knock-off. Of course the audience got yet another lecture how bad even the pre-Nazi America was to blacks, yadda yadda. But they were also presented as about the only resistance to the Japanese on the West Coast, even though in the beginning of the series there were plenty of white resistance fighters on the West Coast. And as opposed to the case in the Nazi occupied zone where whites of Northern European stock could work for that regime as equals, all non-Japanese were treated as inferiors in the "Japanese Pacific States" or JPS. So no one else was fighting the Japanese except the BCR in season 4, which seems like total nonsense when it goes against even the 1st season. Also they created this totally dishonest victims backstory for the bleeps in season 4 where they were almost all exterminated by the Nazis in the East in Auschwitz style death camps, which didn't happen in real life or in the book. In the book they were re-enslaved but not exterminated.

They even took that to the east coast where the Julia's resistance squad was hiding out in a vacant Harlem neighborhood where the houses of the blacks were untouched after they were taken away 20 years earlier. So whole neighborhoods in New York City Manhattan, now the capital of Reich America, were ghost towns nobody used or even entered to scavenge and loot? You'd think that such valuable Manhattan real estate would be scooped up ASAP. In real life the houses and possessions of the Jews and other enemies of the Reich were taken as spoils by everyone else left behind, starting with Party members. Then Julia's plan to meet up with Helen Smith was harebrained too. They send one guy who was previously assaulted and threatened by Helen's super girl Nazi minder Martha to be chased down again and forced to commit suicide by Martha in a department store, thereby alerting the Reichsmarshall to a possible threat to his wife. Julia schedules a secret rendezvous with Helen at a women's clinic later on where she meets Helen Smith dressed up as a nurse. For background Helen already knew Julia and knew she was in the resistance; so there was previous trust established. So instead of talking privately in the doctor's office behind a locked door, she leads them both down to the basement where Wyatt dressed up as a janitor was on hand to guard. So super Nazi minder Martha gets suspicious, tracks them down and almost kills Wyatt with her Nazi dagger before Julia helps Wyatt to do her in. But super Martha seriously messed up Wyatt because super women are the norm? The Flick Filosopher would ban me for disparaging that meme. So they not only burn Martha and her stuff, but throw her knife into the handy incinerator too, so later on Gestapo agents can track Martha's fate down. But why Helen and her protection team even left the clinic in the first place w/o Martha and how none of the other Nazi guards noted that is a cheap plot hole. The gist of the meeting was that Julia told Martha that an alt version of her dead son Thomas was alive on the alt world where the Nazis lost and the Smiths were just ordinary middle class American nice folks. Why they had to go into the basement to tell Helen that is beyond me.

I liked the alternate world part that the Nazi portal in the Poconos led too. Julia was able to travel to alternate worlds without the portal and she ended up in the Nazi lost the war for the beginning of season 4 where she met the nice Smiths. But she noticed the Nazi interlopers were sabotaging rockets and killing scientists in that world and when she realized they were coming after her too, she magically went back to the Nazis won world to get back into the resistance. The Nazi interloper ended up killing the alt John Smith instead of her as he saved her from the killer. So according to the portal rules laid out, John Smith was now able to go to the alt world and meet up with the alt Helen and the alt Thomas, which he did later on. But he met the alt of an old Jewish US Army buddy whom he sold out when he turned Nazi in his Nazi world. Reichsmarshall John Smith was a US Army Signal Corps general in WW 2. He tried in vain to keep alt Thomas from enlisting in the 1964 US Marines because he felt he'd get killed in Viet Nam. He used some heavy anti-war rhetoric to stop his son from enlisting in the USMC, and between that and meeting up with the alt of his old Jewish Army friend must have caused him to reconsider his sordid present as Reichsmarshall John Smith. Another problem I had with the portal was the Nazis had Dr. Mengele run it. He was a freaking Biologist and Geneticist, not a Physicist or Engineer. I guess the show runners' thinking must have been that Mengele's name would be recognized and jeered at by lots of people, while hardly anyone would know a name of an actual contemporary German Physicist even Heisenberg.

But back to the JPS and west coast: The BCR set off a bunch of bombs targeting the oil pipeline which eventually caused the Japanese to withdraw because things were going bad in their war in China and they needed the oil. So the Emperor decides to abandon their super valuable west coast colony because they need the oil? Don't the Japanese still control the oil in Java and how will they insure the new west coast government there will still send them oil? No one said Japanese were losing on the sea since the US Navy wasn't around to sink their warships and supply line tankers after the US lost. They were just tied down in China. So a few bombs set off by the bleeps were all that it took to get the Japanese to leave. I guess no one heard of the fanatical and horrible fights to the death, no-surrender defensive battles in the Pacific like Iwo Jima and Okinawa. The Japanese got backed into a large corner by a few guerillas and saboteurs so they leave en masse. That is totally unrealistic plot point. Then the only white resistance we see in season 4 aside from Wyatt's part in an assassination attempt he did solely to get arms for his people in the east from the BCR, was some lame white vigilantes who came around in vain TWICE to kill Kido, the Kempetai chief. Kido gets a chance at redemption, why? Maybe because of his son who has PTSD from horrible things his soldier son did in Manchuria to civilians, as if the Japanese didn't commit absolutely horrible acts of brutal mass murder against the Chinese from 1937 onwards like their soldiers individually raping, shooting, bayonetting, clubbing, burning 250,000 poor Chinese civilians in the Rape of Nanking. Nor did the real life Japanese even try to hide their brutality, they bragged in their press about contests among their soldiers to see how many Chinese they could behead in a day. So only his son had trouble with such normal and horrific Japanese army behavior. Kido also supported the Navy who wanted to abandon the west coast and that caused the navy to run afoul of the army, which was a realistic plot point based on the idiotic rivalry between their two services in WW 2. There was a lot of time devoted to some boring subplot to redeem himself by trying to save his son from the Yakuza after his son went rogue from PTSD. You see Kido was too hard and unfeeling towards his son, as if that wasn't the norm then. So the show has to lecture the audience on how to be a better father, dull?

Now back to the Nazis on the east coast. Reichsmarshall John Smith and his German partners in Germany kill off Himmler and his cronies and the new fuhrer give John Smith and the American part of the Reich co-equal status. While no one minds John Smith killing off Heinrich Himmler, why they had to drag J. Edgar Hoover as in the FBI in as an American turncoat head of the American Gestapo to kill him off as an enemy of John is a sordid attempt to score political points with the liberals. Then let's go back to the whole portal thing. They show Reichsmarshall John Smith travelling to the portal, built in an old Pennsylvanian coal mine, on a rocket powered monorail train. How freaking retro Sci Fi kitsch is that? Monorails never went past amusement park ride status for very simple reason is they are TOTALLY impractical. Yeah, that alone is a sore spot. Since this review is listed as having spoilers, I will tell you that Julia and the now recovered Wyatt along with a whole battalion blow up the elevated line and kill Reichsmarshall John Smith, and his wife Helen dies in the crash. Their assault team also takes over the portal. Upon learning of Reichsmarshall John Smith's death, his immediate successor tears off his swastika and recalls the invasion force that was ready to pounce on the west coast. Meanwhile the portal opens up and random people come streaming in from alt world.

I don't how that is even possible, since in the other alt world, the one like ours, the portal just appeared as a random old mine entrance in Pennsylvania. And if it was discovered on the other world, wouldn't they send in a team of armed formal emissaries/explorers to scout things out at first? I guess these random interlopers are supposed to represent the hordes of illegals that the show runners want us to embrace. In short the 4th and final year undermined the whole series.

Above the Shadows (2019)

It was wrongly marketed as a Sci Fi, Supernatural or Super Hero Movie

[7/10 · 9 January 2023]

But it was a decent emotionally centered movie about being literally unnoticed. Of course Holly was the 12 yo middle child in her family and after her mother died her family just withdrew but she literally became invisible to everyone. I mean of course it is just an exaggeration on how many young women feel and the movie made no attempt to do any "Invisible Man" special effects. Adult Holly, played by Olivia Thirlby, makes the most of her virtual invisibility by being a tabloid stringer snooping around and taking compromising picture of celebs and reporting on their peccadilloes. She sneaks into her editor's office, which is easy since she's invisible then does a text message dialog with him, played by the ever weird David Johannsen with invisible her sitting across him as he vocalizes his reaction to her texts. She repeats variations of this trick in a number of situations. But because of her invisibility she is unconnected and unhappy. Then she gets stopped and thrown out of a seedy club by an ex MMA fighter bouncer who saw her trailing her latest celebrity prey. See Shane was a big wheel fighter in the MMA world until one of her sneak pictures of him cheating on his movie star wife, played by Megan Fox of course, led to him spiraling downhill. So she learns that he is the ticket to her re-entry into the world of the noticed as when he touches her, she gets photographed. She eggs on his return to championship and becomes his lover too. There are some up ands downs as she learns from Shane that she needs to reach out more to other people starting with her family where she kicks a pretty young woman to the ground invisibly of course so her weird introverted brother would come out of his basement hideout and help then fall for her. The movie ended up with a sappy sentimental happy ending which is okay in these days of bummer tragic and gory movie endings.

Ca$h (2010)

Pretty Limp and Boring Movie Inspite or because of Its Cynical take on People

[4/10 · 26 December 2022]

This is an old concept. Joe Everyman comes across a large suitcase of ill gotten money and decides to take it to alleviate his cash problems; like saving his house from being foreclosed. He and his wife are overjoyed but a bit leery. Of course the British twin brother of the robber who stole it comes to America to help his now jailed twin and get the money back. This English hood Pyke Kubic is played by the vastly over-rated Sean Bean while the witless finder of the cash, Sam Phelan is played by Chris Hemsworth (whom I like more than Bean the Awesome Medieval Lord) and his spouse Leslie is played by Victoria Profeta. Well Pyke traces the finder down by his bro's description of his car and by figuring he bought a new car with cash from a Chicago area auto dealer, a dubious guess since the recipient might have enough sense not to send up rockets to the IRS and others like how he bought a new 70K Range Rover with cash.

Pyke is a pretty nasty and brutal guy who, while at first acting restrained and clever, uses brutal force to get even a small refund from a hapless hoteler he wasn't entitled to. All along his journey around Chicago, almost all the other characters, at least the white ones, are shown to be shady and corrupt too like the auto dealer and bank loan officer. This is a cheap cynical ploy similar to what was employed in say the "Sopranos". It says since we are all imperfect, how dare you judge this dastardly criminal who "just" feeds off of weak normal people. He squeezes our hapless couple like a rock right down to getting almost all the money back. But instead of just writing off the last bit as a business loss, after all it was stolen loot, he commandeers the couple's house basically kidnapping them. Then he forces the couple to commit armed robberies to make up the difference. It was played like a comedy but it wasn't very funny. It had a dopey almost indie vibe to it that didn't gel very well. Kubic was too nasty and greedy character to make me laugh as he exposes less corrupt people's foibles, like how Sam's mother-in-law grabbed $600 from the box of cash she was storing for them. It just didn't leave a good taste in my mouth.

Smiley Face Killers (2020)

Not a Bad Movie, but like Most Brett Easton Ellis movies, the filmmakers didnt do a Great Job

[6/10 · 23 September 2022]

It certainly doesn't deserve a 3.7 rating score. The lead Jake obviously had some mental issues his killers took advantage of as they began gaslighting him leading up to the inevitable gory end. Of course the larger themes Ellis likes to bring up about about the whole rich guy Hollywood LA beautiful people shtick are there, but as a backdrop not as a target.

The only named actor I recognized was Crispin Glover, who played one of un-named robed and hooded killers. But he didn't get a chance to go full psycho. The rest of the actors were unknowns which fit their low budget by they did a good enough job.

The Terminal List (2022– )

Wow, this is really pumped up, action packed TV Series but So What

[3/10 · 13 August 2022]

It had the classic revenge movie set-up, a bad azz military man's wife and daughter are murdered. Add that to the impossibly intricate plot of not only cartoonish unscrupulous defense contractors, but his superiors in the Navy and even the Secretary of Defense are involved too. You see they had developed this drug that was supposed to fight PTSD. Yet it caused cancer in test animals. So let's test it on elite Navy SEALs with the connivance of their superiors, and when tumors develop. Let's send them on a mission to the Mideast where they all get wasted. Except our anti-hero survived, so they decide to kill his wife and kid instead and try to frame him for it. At first it seems that his troubled mind is creating these fantasies, but that idea gets disabused quickly. The bad guys do get discovered thanks to an intrepid reporter but not before our intrepid hero starts a campaign to exterminate all the bad guys using his lethal and surveillance skills he learned as a Navy SEAL. Of course, he calls on the aid of various comrades in arms at times. But very quickly the movie settles down to our star Chris Pratt as Commander James Reece killing off the various baddies in various ways from drug ODs, to impossibly long range sniper shots on fast moving cars, to turning one baddy into a suicide bomber to blow up another one to just the usual hacking, shooting and even driving hatchets in various people's head. It got so boring and predictable, but we were all supposed to go along because he was the brave SEAL whose wife, kid and comrades were killed by this diverse crew of baddies. You'd think a good Christian like Chris Pratt, who was more than just the lead, might inject some of his Christian concepts such as forgiveness and revenge is a sin. I dunno, none of that bled through as he just chewed through his human targets like they were arcade targets. There was a sister-in-law who upbraided him for getting the family involved because she was worried about the possible blowback not principles; and the reporter ally Katie Buranek played by Constance Wu who wanted him to slow down. But no one served as a voice of conscience. The closest we came to that were some FBI agents who were assigned to catch him and protect his victims having some qualms but covertly letting him get away.

Like a lot of media these days, it got subsumed under the right vs left wing culture war. The right sucked it up like cotton candy like in the many positive stories run in just the Daily Wire site about it. One of the liberal reviewers said it was a right wing revenge fantasy which is better described as a revenge fantasy aimed at not exclusively right wingers. Indeed his targets were pretty right wing too; DoD chiefs, admirals, mega rich defense contractors etc. Throwing a few lunatic trans-sexual activists and BLM hooligans into the target list would have made it better and funnier. There was no sense of humor or even irony in this grim series of murders or even a satisfying conclusion. But they left some room for a sequel.

Deadly Vows (1994 TV Movie)

Good Cheap Made for TV Melodrama Sleaze

[6/10 · 15 July 2022]

I liked it. Yes it is a Lifetime movie where TWO women get victimized by their sleazebag joint hubby, played well by Gerald McRaney as Tom Weston. He is obviously having a mid life crisis of his life of comfortable blue collar delivery truck driving dullness. His attractive wife Nancy, played by Peggy Lipton, looks too good to be rejected by her not very fabulous husband. Then he finds some young dull but pretty laundry worker Bobbie played by Josie Bissett to woo and then secretly and illegally married. It was a real comic set up where young Bobbi acted like just a family friend in front of Nancy because Tom managed to buffalo Nancy to not trust her feelings. Bobbie even befriended Nancy. Weird. Then Tom came up with this hare brained plan to use explosives to off his 1st wife. Then after he fails and is arrested for attempted murder, he becomes sort of a jailhouse heavy as he plans to have one of his wives bumped off.

OK it was a low budget Canadian flick where Vancouver doubled in for Northern Michigan, which is not a stretch. But It was watchable and fun and wasn't that predictable. I recommend it!

After the Fall (2014)

Pretentious Schlock Pretending to Be Weighty

[2/10 · 5 May 2022]

West Bentley plays the lead "Bill Scanlon" an insurance adjuster father and husband who got laid off after he bought a way too expensive suburban house in Albuquerque NM. But he is too proud to even tell his wife. So one day after he walks out into the neighboring desert to waste himself with an old revolver he finds he can't do it. So he wonders into a model house of a new subdivision where he finds a couple having sex, some sort of affair. So he ends up "accidentally" robbing them, then realizes sticking people up is lucrative and even fun.

So he embarks on a life of crime while still pretending to be working and even meets a down at his heels seedy detective played by the great Jason Isaac. He befriends them then takes them out in the desert where he gives the younger Bill a shooting lesson, after finding out Bill's dad was a cop. All sorts of things happen like his wife finds out he is out of a job and decamps with the kids to her dad's house. Our hero then decides to fill the pool in because "pools are such a hassle" even as he tries to unload the too big defaulting house. Then his wife comes back, why?

He also tries to play the good guy by threatening various hold up victims like a manager of a convenience store who was nasty to a cute employee he liked. The movie premiered at some German film festival where the audience ate it up as a perfect example of the rotten American dream and the rotten nuclear family.

I didn't buy it, especially with its dreamy camera work, slow pacing and emo score. It was just schlock pretending to be profound.

The Blackcoat's Daughter (I) (2015)

It had great elements, but it lacked a unifying plot

[5/10 · 7 February 2022]

It was like a 5 course meal without a main dish. It had great atmosphere, lighting, locations, winter season and promising characters. But it failed to gel since it was little more than school girls get possessed by something demonic, as represented by an old coal fired furnace's glowing door, then go out and commit horrible murders. Being an A 24 film, it has a bit of cachet as being a smart horror film and it is. But at the end, one has to say "Where's the beef?"

Looking Glass (I) (2018)

Typical Poor Nick Cage Effort That Flubbed on a Half Way Interesting Concept

[3/10 · 7 December 2021]

There was just too much wrong with this movie, but it was good to see Robin Tunney who delivered the best performance. The Cageniks will prolly try to justify this typical Cage bomb of a movie that attracts him like a cow flop attracts flies. This guy has set a record for starring in bad movies. But like I said it had some good things going for it like the voyeuristic bit where he discovers the old owner's two way mirror and gallery where he could watch his patrons have sex and more. It also squandered the part of a couple facing tragedy starting over in a small desert town running an old motel.

The mystery is that a guest "killed" herself before they took over at the pool and another guest turned up dead too. The shady ex-owner Ben is hiding from Ray (Cage) and Maggie (Tunney) too. Then a suspicious local cop starts trying to ingratiate himself with Ray. Then Ray gets aggressive and goes to interrogate a smarmy lesbo S & M dominatrix who was connected to one of the victims at a seedy bar. There at the bar he gets violent with her huge buzz cut protector and pulls his gun on them, instead of just leaving her alone as he was told to do.

Then he tracks down the old owner Ben who was hiding not too far away and he greets Ray with a Geiger counter, which that red herring goes nowhere. Then Ben gets wasted by a long range shot out in the desert and Ray calls up his estranged wife, they fought the night before because she believed she had sex with the S & M lesbo, and tells her to pack up and get ready to leave.

But the shady cop had broken in earlier, taken his wife hostage and brought her to the room with the secret mirror, all in the space of a couple minutes head start he had after killing the old owner. Natch at the end Cage jumps through the mirror and fights and kills the bad cop and saves his poor wife.

So then what do our couple do after solving the mystery and killing the bad guy? They jump into his Chevy pickup w/o even a suitcase between and run away, leaving the brutally killed dead cop in one of their motel rooms. Not to mention abandoning all their belongings and all the money they sank into the motel too.

So yeah, the ending really sucked, they set themselves up as wanton cop killers and did not even report the death of the old owner, who was lying out in the desert being devoured by vultures and other scavengers. If they wrapped it up a little better, the movie wouldn't have sucked so bad. But that was one terrible ending to an otherwise so-so average erotic thriller.

Tick Tock (2000)

Good for a Lifetime Movie Network flick & for a Amazon Prime Offering

[7/10 · 10 October 2021]

Usually LMN movies show some plucky woman escape from some psychopaths, usually a mother protecting their kids. But in this case the two female leads are cheating, conniving murderous females who are also lesbian lovers. See Rachel wants to do in her older patronizing husband Holden who is kind of a jerk but otherwise treats her okay. So she conspires with her childhood friend and lesbian lover Carla to do him in. So to do this, they rope a hapless cowboy, Travis this is set in Bakersfield CA, their C&W rodeo town. Carla makes Travis think that they just want to blackmail rich cheating Rachel with photos of them getting it on. There is also a private detective Clay, played by Cliff from Cheers who was hired by Holden to check on his wife, The 2 scheming women use his tailings and notes as part of their alibis and evidence to frame their cowboy accomplice. There is a scene where naked Carla bludgeons Rachel's husband to death using an elephant tusk, with the plausible explanation she doesn't want to get blood on her clothes. That is the closest I've seen to porn in a LMN movie.

Events cause their plans to unravel but Carla stays one step ahead and keeps thinking of new ploys to compensate. The title. "Tick Tock" comes from the use of an old wind up clock spinning backwards to indicate this scene is a flashback. Though the endless twists become a bit too much, the dark ending is well worth the wait!

Too Late (I) (2015)

Not too bad, but it seems more like a film school project than a coherent flick

[4/10 · 31 May 2021]

The lead John Hawkes, who plays the private eye Mel Sampson is the best part of the movie. He is an interesting off-beat indie actor sort of guy. Then recycled old B-listers Joanna Cassidy, Robert Forster, Dash Mihook and Jeff Fahey rounded out the cast. Non linear time story telling and 5 35MM 20 minute reel single shots are the buzz phrases associated with this film that give it an art house appeal. But its convoluted plot, cliched noirish dialogue and it's 4th reel that defies the rest of the movie's plot detract from it. One side plot element was there were two drug dealers who offered the pretty doomed stripper some Ecstasy before she was strangled by some psycho got it in their little heads that their drugs killed her. Even though they saw her body but missed the ligature marks around her neck. So they decide they have to kill our intrepid private investigator because they thought that somehow they'd get blamed for her murder. You see? And this poor stripper who has a heart of gold, unknown to all but our gumshoe, is actually his daughter. You see when he was reading a book on how to be a private eye 20 odd years earlier, it said to follow someone. So he followed a beautiful woman for days until tehy finally started talking, then had sex. Then he continued to follow the woman as she was now pregnant and then kept tabs on his illegitimate daughter from afar. Corny huh? Whatever? Watch it for free on Prime if you are bored.

Things Heard & Seen (2021)

Good Netflix Production with a 70s Vibe

[8/10 · 31 May 2021]

Things Heard & Seen You can't help liking the movie. It was set at a small elitist Hudson Valley college called "Saginaw?". But it was shot in the Hudson Valley Dutchess County NY and set in 1980. Some smarmy arts academic twit lands a cushy arts history teaching job at this in this small upstate NY town, He drags his anorexic artist wife and his daughter along with him to this old farmhouse that is creepy and seemingly haunted. Of course, there was a terrible murder-suicide there in the recent past that the scummy husband withheld that news from his nervous wife. If you are familiar with a raft of movies from the Amityville Horror to Sinister, that is never a good thing. Besides, in a small town and college community, how long could that salient feature about her new house could be kept secret from her? The leads were pretty good, you can't help but feel protective of poor little pop-eyed Amanda Seyfried put-upon character of Catherine Claire, the harried wife and mother taken away from her NYC home. Her wretched husband George was played by James Norton, was perfect for his role, he just oozed sleaziness and weakness at the same time with his sleazy smile. He lied and cheated on everything, from forging a recommendation from his doctoral advisor for a degree he never got because he liked to grab cute young co-ed at his grad school, to the paintings he stole from his dead cousin and claimed as his. He even drive a Peugeot. But his charm worked on his new boss and department head played by the avuncular F. Murray Abraham as Floyd DeBeers. He also landed a local filly, a smart alec elitist brat who was taking time off from Cornel as a horse riding instructor. Then there are the two sons of the previous dead murder-suicide parent owners of the old dairy farm who come to the new owners' service as both a baby-sitter and handy man.

Okay, I don't want to write a synopsis, but there is a supernatural angle to all this. It all starts with the academic pursuit of our villain, who researched this 19th century painter who was influenced by a mystic called Swedenborg, both real people. Apparently Swedenborg had this philosophy that what we do in our life was mirrored in the afterlife. But to cut to the quick, their old farmhouse had ghosts of the previous housewives who were murdered by their hubbies (the 19th century wife of the original owner died mysteriously, presumed murdered too) , and these ghosts were trying to warn our hapless Catherine by signaling her by ghostly presence and doing things like blowing up their kid's night light when George lies to her. She even has a séance where all the fringe clique at the college see this poltergeist. But along with these good ghosts is some bad male ones that secretly make George even worse than his previous normal lying cheating self.

I like these sort of small town country and collegiate set ups, it is very 70s and early 80s vibe to it. It is a fun movie but as most people commented, the ending was weak. Maybe the original book had more to offer but the screen writers had to shoe horn into a time frame. But I recommend it.

The Death of Stalin (2017)

Too Serious A Subject for a Comedy

[4/10 · 15 April 2021]

I'm sorry, Stalin and the evilness of the whole Soviet system starting with Lenin are too deep and sad to be cut up in a clever English comedy like this. The depth of the mass murders, repressions, lies, inversions of reality and near extermination of ethnic minorities like Chechens or better off farmers aka kulaks are simply too deep to be relegated to even an adult comedy. Add to the evils of their system are the mass lies and pervasive poverty and corruption of their system. And how the leftist intellectuals around the world defended that patently evil system for decades. So yes, a film like this is just too flippant for the subject matter. Would anyone tolerate a film like this about Hitler and the Nazis? Well since 8000 movies have been made about how evil Hitler was, one or two as a black comedy would be tolerable. But how many feature movies have there been about Stalin, 20? And finally, though I like Steve Buscemi, give me a break he doesn't resemble Khrushchev in the least. So far 9 people thought it necessary to black ball my review. I guess my barbs hit to close to them.

True History of the Kelly Gang (2019)

Pretentious Ponderous Dreck Based on Real History

[3/10 · 10 November 2020]

Ned Kelly and his gang of outlaws, known as bush rangers, are a big part of Australian folk history. So there are 100s of movies, books, TV shows etc concerning these outlaws. So it isn't like this woke, sexually charged, much altered version is going to mislead native Aussies about their Kelly Gang. It starts off by smugly telling us that this is not true story. But it is an artsy edgy version that misses the beat. It has some good cinematography and acting, but over all it was dull and ponderous. But for the gore action and sex junkies, it delivers the goods. But it fails to elevate to anything profound. Interesting enough, two of the leads, Hunnam and McKay are Englishmen.

7 Deadly Sins (2014)

Misuse of Format

[3/10 · 2 November 2020]

If one wants to exploit the 7 deadly sins format, one has to be consistent. This production seemed to be a hodge podge of interesting and weird vignettes that were mostly erroneous misfiled or didn't even belong there. For instance they had these weird latex female skin suits made by some family for various sorts, but that was under "Pride". Or this canned hunting ranch in Texas that also breeds African animals to shoot like impalas. Whatever your thoughts are on these sort of set ups, this story doesn't belong under "Greed". Why he put internet remote sex under "Sloth", not "Lust" is baffling too. What is baffling the most is the first one, "Gluttony". Spurlock broke into the public with his "Supersize Me" documentary. But this just exploits the subject, not educate people. It would have been better for him and Showtime to just have a regular series of his about weird and novel trends.

Keeping the Faith (2000)

Pretty Poor Movie

[2/10 · 8 June 2020]

And I like both the leads, Norton and Stiller. But for starters, the camera work plain sucked. The shots were like someone was filming a play from the audience. The angles and editing were old fashioned and unprofessional, it was first year film school. Norton is a poor director and no one had the guts to tell him. The story was pure NYC Manhattan schmaltz. The two friends, the Irish priest and rabbi (guess who played both) who were vying over a woman they both knew was uninspiring. There was no intelligence to the script, no real examination of any theology or moral questions. It boiled down to the priest was naughty for wanting a woman while the reb was naughty for going out with a shiska. The jokes were on a 70s urban sitcom level like "Barney Miller" or "Bridget Loves Bernie". Face it, it was a waste of time.

Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019)

Likeable but Ultimately Trivial

[6/10 · 5 February 2020]

I liked the movie since it covered a time and actors I am familiar with.. It was pleasant fun, especially to see Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate and Damian Lewis as Steve McQueen. Part of the reason this movie came out now was that it dovetailed on the 50 years of the Manson Murder "Anniversary" which yielded a horrid crop of movies last year. But the main character, Rick Dalton, played by Di Caprio , a fading alcoholic B movie cowboy actor, was unlikable and his travails were boring. But he lived next door to the Tate-Polanski house in LA. But his stunt double side kick and friend-gofer Cliff Booth, played by Brad Pitt, was great as he honed his laid-back tough-guy persona again. But it had that Inglorious B***erds vibe where real history was altered to make our stars seem cool. Of course, Quentin showed he was great at nailing cowboy movie genre and inserting his actors in classic movies, like putting Rick in a real scene from "The Great Escape" in McQueen's place. But ultimately, I felt ho-hum so-what at the end. It was all frosting,albeit good, but no cake.

Night Hunter (2018)

Terrible, derivative, sensational & a waste of time

[3/10 · 12 January 2020]

If you are here, you probably watched it on Amazon lately. It reminds me of a past Amazon offering that dealt with the similar theme of abducted and abused women and had a similar mid sized budget and star studded cast, The Captive. They are both Canadian movies, but at least Ergoyan's Captive was set in Canada not Minneapolis. And his movie avoided the sensationalist murder part with a cardboard psycho baby killer that elicited laughs. I also hated this movie because it reminded me of Law and Order SVU, but w/o the ripped from the headlines faux realism. And it was way longer too. It had its share of too hoakey even for a movie stuff 6 cops are gassed to death searching the torture, secret prison. Why? Just for more senseless I like Henry Cavil and hated to see the cardboard possessed and divorced homicide detective character he played. I hated the side angle of his cute relationship with his ex and his daughter, and how his daughter heightened his concern for vulnerable exploited girls.

The Divide (2011)

Well Done Film But a Sick Plot and Theme

[3/10 · 17 September 2019]

This movie is part of the French movie wave where everything and everybody sucks and no one ever acts decently or nobly. Those kinds of movies are chock full of primal level violence and depravity as to remind us how we all basically suck, especially Americans. Make no doubt that the directors and writers were punching down on the USA. It is the deliberate antithesis of the classic Hollywood zeitgeists where the heroes and decent people will out-number and triumph over the bad people. OK, this might have some decent sub motives, where if you de-glamorize and de-heroize war and other violent scenarios, people would be less apt to seek them out as a way to test themselves. But I could only take 3/4s of an hour of it before I shut it down.

Really stupid things that bothered me the most:

Anyone that close to an exploding nuke who stares at it will get a fatal radiation dose and start dying immediately.

Early in the movie, after about a day in the improvised shelter, some team of well armed men in Bio-Hazard suits came into the shelter, kidnapped the little girl (why?), then let some of themselves be killed off by the desperate shelter people by letting themselves be ambushed in the warren of the NYC apartment building basement. Obviously they were government soldiers or similar. That was totally unbelievable on so many levels. It was done to show how much even the US government sucks. Even if this unit had malign motives, they could have at least pretended to be helpful.

---- Finally, if you like Lord of the Flies reversion to bestiality under duress on steroids, this is your movie. It is well crafted as far as acting, camera work and sets go. For the rest of the world, stay away from this disturbing mess.

The Boys (2019– )

Cheap Cynicism

[3/10 · 1 August 2019]

The growth of the comic book super hero genre in movies today is spectacularly fecund. Marvel seems to be the biggest box office draw in the last 10 years. I hate to say this but it is part of the dumbing down of America; where once juvenile past-times and B movie drive-in and late night TV diversions are A list tickets these days. So, in that eruption of mega corporation mass marketing, a smaller "counter-culture" of movies and shows mocking and satirizing the genre. Ironically they are usually based on graphic novels like this one and Happy. And like Happy, this one is ultra violent and devoid of any really likeable or heroic characters. But this one ratchets the cynicism and violence up one more notch. For instance, the main super-"hero", Homelander, is Super Man meets Captain America all star white guy stereotype. To top it off, he is an ordained minister. Of course, he is an utter evil and depraved man, the worst of the lot. The soups, as they are called, are run by a corporation called Vought, where the cynical jaded head of it, Madelyn Stillwell, played by Elisabeth Shue, manipulates and protects her screwed up heroes. The corporation is all about money and publicity and turn every super-hero mission into social media click-bait event. The corporation also wants to get into the Pentagon defense complex. Then enter Hughie Campbell, Dennis Quaid's son Jack, a computer service tech. He was talking to his girlfriend on the street when she got gorily and horrifically splattered by a soup called A-Train who is their Flash counterpart. Not only was that over the top violent, but it suggests that running people down is a regular item for A Train, since he seems unable to dodge obstacles in his way. Come on, that is a really stupid way to get about. Well, poor Hughie was jerked around by Vought's lawyers and let down by his amiable but weak dad. So enter Billy Butcher, aka Karl Urban, a fast talking con-man come vigilante who knows what conniving scum Vought's soups are. So he convinces Hughie to go along with a plan to bug Vought's inner sanctum. Then another brutish soup, Translucent, gets wind of this and follows Hughie back to his shop to beat and try to pump info out of our hapless Hughie. But Butcher returns in the nick of time to save Hughie from this warped soup and the two, with the aid of another comic book sort called Frenchie, imprisons then eventually ends up killing Translucent. From then on, we were exposed to one nasty brutish violent incident and gun fight after another, interspersed with scenes of ruthless corporate behavior and horrific sex. Such as where a female soup called Popclaw, a Wolverine knock off, sits on then crushes a hapless guy's head after she enticed him in her bedroom for sex. Then we have a #metoo subplot, there's the sleazy soup The Deep, an Aquaman imitation, coerced a new pretty female soup Starlight aka Annie January, for some sex. Ironically the Deep was one of the less evil soups and Starlight was a virtual goddess of a classic superhero and a small town conservative Christian woman to boot. Then the Deep has a bestiality streak with a dolphin, which is cheezy enough. But he kidnaps the dolphin and when he wrecks the van, the poor dolphin gets graphically squished by an 18 wheeler.

This show just loves trashing everything from religion to even motherhood, where Vought gets mothers to be to take a drug that causes their infants to be soups. The cynicism, like the extreme violence and sex it promotes, is plain ugly. The indie movie "Super" was a good take off on super heroes w/o the extremes of this. But it is addicting and Amazon's high budget and packaging makes it easy to binge watch. It also has the malignant Seth Rogen as its producer.