HAMMERHEAD!!!! (1987)

The exclamation points are mine. As I mentioned in a previous post, this is one of three films in Paul Cooke and David Zuzelo's book Tough To Kill Vol. 1. Go to the previous post and check it out and order the damned thing already. Sheesh! I gotta do all the thinking around here.
Anyway, this flick is fantastic! It starts off with a bang with our hero, Hammer (played by Daniel Green) meeting up with an old war buddy. They were in a unit called The Storm Riders and now someone is eliminating them one by one. It's up to Hammer to avenge his old friend and see if he can save the rest of his squad in the process.
This thing is so full of action movie staples that it might be physically impossible to fit it all in, but director Enzo G. Castellari manages to pull it off quite nicely.
We get a car chase to start things off that turns into a motorcycle vs. car chase that ends with two men on a train platform trying to shoot each other and managing to nail a large number of innocent passerbys instead.
Of course Hammer is taken off the case by his boss which leaves him the freedom to go to Jamaica to avenge his friend. While he's there he finds his old buddy, Carlos, who is driving a souped up cab. They tear across the island looking for clues to who could have killed their friend.
Take this pretty basic premise and sprinkle it with lots of chases whether they be cars or jet skis. Add a liberally amount of fight scenes and shake with some of the tamest love scenes on the planet and you have the wonderful hodge podge that is HAMMERHEAD!
Director Castellari knew what he was doing with this one. He keeps throwing so much action and violence that you don't have time to complain about some of the worst acting you will ever come across. But that's what makes the movie that kind of great, mindless action picture. It's not about the leading man's acting chops. It about him chopping someone across the throat and getting his face sliced by a table saw in the process.
speaking of the table saw, the guy who gets whacked by it was one of the better effects I have seen in any movie. If nothing else, the movie is inventive in it's fights and kill scenes.
And when it comes to an end it's just over. We don't need a bunch of that arty farty exposition. We know that the hero will win and get the girl and all will be well in the world of HAMMERHEAD!
My thanks to David Zuzelo for giving me the opportunity to see this flick. You people really need o order the book. The one unfortunate side effect of reading it is that it will compel you to watch as many of these things as you can get your hands on. But, hey! That's not a bad thing.

TOUGH TO KILL VOL. 1 Revisitied

Remember this tome, boys and girls? After reading it twice I thought I would watch the ones that got the highest rating of five exploding huts. I still love that rating system. There were three of them. Two, easy to find, the third, not so much. Anyway, I completely forgot this as I continued to watch too many damned movies and life went about it's merry way. Yesterday I got a little present in the mail. Author David Zuzelo sent me a copy of HAMMERHEAD. This was the hard one to find. I'm watching it today and I will be giving my thoughts of a film worth five exploding huts. Maybe I'll get Dan The Man to watch it with me.
In the meantime, go here to buy the book and start watching these flicks. They are so much better than the Hollywood pablum out there today.

THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR

Man, that's a long title, but it works. In fact all of the movie works. Third in the series of Brendan Fraser flicks dealing with dusty dudes who come back for world domination, this one finds our erstwhile hero and his lovely bride in the grips of something new. An Eastern mummy. Namely The Dragon Emperor and that is Jet Li.
How can anyone not like a flick with Jet Li as the bad guy and the delectable Michelle Yeoh as an immortal sorceress sworn to stop him from returning to life.
This time around we get more of the same wild action, lots of shoot outs, some kick ass cool Yetis, and did I mention Isabella Leong? As Michelle Yeoh's immortal daughter she is absolutely gorgeous and needs to be in more mainstream flicks. The girl has movie star written all over her.
Now, I hear some detractors for this flick and all I have to say is, why did you grow up? Can you not remember the days of yesteryear with wild and woolly action flicks? Indiana Jones and that lot tearing up the cinema? This is embracing that genre completely and remembering where our characters came from.
Sure I would have loved to have Rachel Weisz reprise her role again, but she didn't. Instead we get the stunning Maria Bello and her introduction as Evelyn is hilarious. It reminded me of the second George of The Jungle flick at the very beginning where the Narrator is talking and George, who is not Brendan Fraser, comes into view. The Narrator says; "Who the heck are you?" and the new George, played by Christopher Showerman, says; "Me new George. Studio too cheap to pay Brendan Fraser." This is excellent and it makes you realize that they are having fun with the audience which is always a plus. The new Mummy does the same thing with Evelyn's character and the entire audience chuckled.
My wife and I took our youngest to see the flick and I have to say that it is made for him. He's eight and he loved the thing. Now we can get that box set of all three flicks. Hopefully they make cool yeti toys for this movie. I think I need one.
Anyway, don't listen to the dried up, stick in the muds who boo what is probably one of the more fun things on movie screens this summer. Go see it and remember why you liked the first too so much.

SCARECROW GONE WILD (2004)

Did I watch it for the unanswered questions from SCARECROW and SCARECROW SLAYER? No, I haven't seen either of those movies. Did I watch it because a large majority of it takes place on a beach full of bikini clad babes and Olivia Munn from Attack Of The Show is in it? You bet your ass I did. Was Ms. Munn in a bikini or slaughtered by the titular character. Nope, not a chance.
with that baggage out of the way, how was the flick? Not bad. We do get some boobies of both the petite and humongous variety. Lots of action and blood flowing freely. The plot device of a kid in a coma powering the vengeful scarecrow seemed a little thing, but that might hinge on the first two flicks which I have not see...yet. Sure, I'll watch them. I love a good old fashioned horror flick that just does what it's supposed to do and not try to get all pretentious and crap. This one gives you the obligatory jump scares. Some inventive kills. Some slightly interesting dialogue. Lots of gore and very pleasant to look at females.
As for Ms. Munn? She plays a giggling school girl down to a tee and she probably would hate for a clip of this to appear on YouTube. Now I have to figure out how to do that. Sheesh!
In the end, it's a fun little diversion and that's all that really matters. Right? Right!

HOW THE DARK KNIGHT IS GOING TO MAKE ME THE MOST UNPOPULAR PERSON IN THE WORLD

Okay, first sentence and I want to get this out of the way. There will be spoilers throughout this review. I'm not here to stroke the Warner Brother's money machine and entice you to go watch this film. If anything, I might try to dissuade you from going. Yeah, I know, I'm already not very popular. This review should make it worse.
I want to go on the record with a few positive notes. Heath Ledger's performance as The Joker was very good. Of course, I also think that Cesar Romero's performance as the manic madman was very good. It's apples and oranges. Here's an unpopular thought though; Would people be praising this performance this much if he was still with us? It's a harsh question, but one I think needs answering. I don't think people would be all over this movie like this if Ledger was still alive.
I liked the Batman Begins flick. Very good origin and re imagining of the character. The sequel is an insult to true fans of Batman. When Joker attacks Batman with dogs and Batman kills one of the dogs I was done with the movie as a whole. So, he holds all life sacred, unless it's a dog?!? My Batman would have disabled the dog with no permanent damage. My Batman knows that it's not the dog's fault. Its the person who trained the dog.
The whole movie is long, gray and depressing. Add to this the whole Two Face thing and it doesn't really resolve anything. Batman taking the hit for Harvey Dent and making it look like Harvey is normal is crazy. Anyone looking and talking to Harvey would realize that the man has slipped into the depths of madness. Of course, the bonus for me was the scene with the reveal of Two Face. Seeing the side of Eckhart's normal face with that edge of burnt flesh made my stomach roil. I do not do well with burn effects having seen them in real life. And just that edge with what looked like a face disappearing was much worse in my imagination than the horrific vision they gave us. I don't do well with this sort of thing so I had to go out of the theater and wait for the waves of nausea to leave me. Good effects? No, what I thought I was going to see was much worse than what I was given. For the rest of the movie if I knew that Two Face was going to be on the screen I just didn't look at him. Didn't want to have to leave the theater again.
So, let's sum up the whole thing shall we? The movie is too dark. It's supposed to be a superhero movie and superheroes are supposed to be better than us and give us someone to look up to. Killing Rachel was pointless. Harvey would have become Two Face even if she had lived. I don't think she could have pulled him from that downward spiral. Batman doesn't kill dogs. He's been bitten many times and can disable a dog with no permanent damage. Read a comic book once in a while if you're going to make a movie about a comic book character. The solution of making Batman a bad guy is retarded at best. Didn't they try all this darkness and gloom with the new Superman movie? Yeah, that went over real well. Unfortunately, I will be the sole voice of reason screaming to a public that have been spoon fed the movie for over a year before it's release and are praising a performance for no other reason than the actor is dead.
Like I said, I plan on being very unpopular from here on out and that's fine. I know what I like and do not like and don't have that dictated by public opinion. I don't need to see this movie again, I don't need to see it when it comes out on DVD. I am sad that there isn't a Batman movie for my children to see this summer. They were looking forward to it. I'll just have to make sure to get Iron Man when it hits DVD. That was the true superhero movie of the summer. The Dark Knight is just self indulgent crap.
That's all I got.

I GOT ONE WORD TO SAY...

FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC!!!!!

TWO MORE FROM THE CHILLING PACK

Thought I would put up two of these since I have managed to plow through a few more. I might do one more capsule one like I did previously of stuff I have already watched, but I'm not sure.
First up we have a little black and white number where the most interesting part is that Peter Falk is in it and HE"S the bad guy! Yeah, didn't see that one coming did ya?
Anyway, he plays Nico, this cool cat that hangs out at the local speakeasy. He also runs drugs for the mob, but Nico has a problem. He's been with all these beatnik types for so long that their bohemian way of looking at life is making him into something different. It all comes together when an old man dies in front of the group at the hang out. It puts them on a death trip and it isn't long before they whack some kid delivering telegrams when he shows up at one of their parties.
They feed him a hamburger of ground glass and he's down for the count.
What Nico and the gang didn't count on was the kid's older brother who is going to find out who took out his sibling. Plus, Nico's world is coming down around his ears and it won't take much to make the whole party collapse like a house of cards.
This is a pretty good little flick and Peter Falk is awesome as he chews up the scenery in this no budget flick. This one had a bare bones story and some incredible acting. I thought it was a little odd that they could drink at the hang out. I always thought that they hung out in coffeeshops? Oh well, it still stood up better than some of the other flicks in this batch.
Like the next one for instance;



My print says it's called Slashed Dreams. I have the picture of the title card here so you can see how awful it was done. The original title was called Sunburst and that doesn't make much sense either. It's got a lot of hippie kids spouting off hippie crap and there is some stalking of one couple by rapists out i9n the woods. You can tell that they were trying to make a flick with a message and it just fails on an epic level. So, why did they call it Slashed Dreams? Because Robert Englund was in it as another hippie living in the woods spouting off more of that hippie crap. This one was a waste of time. Some of the shots are still well done, but the acting and basic storyline ruin those. If you get this set you might do well to skip this one. Or watch it really high. That might help. Yeah, but it probably won't.