One Last Shot
ONE LAST SHOT is an event movie within the world of indie action: director James Nunn (GREEN STREET 3: NEVER BACK DOWN), writer Jamie Russell and star Scott Adkins have successfully completed an ambitious trilogy. Like ONE SHOT (2021) and ONE MORE SHOT (2024), this is a military action thriller shot ROPE-style (simulating one unbroken take). To do this kind of action on a VOD budget and schedule is an astonishing technical achievement, but honestly the stories are engrossing enough that I donât think about that too much while watching them.
As I said about ONE MORE SHOT, I think this new one would make enough sense if you hadnât seen the others, but I recommend watching them first because they do happen one after the other. Thatâs also a unique thing about this as a part 3: Adkinsâ character Jake Harris begins the movie with two full movies worth of injuries and exhaustion. One of the people transporting him to the location of this movie says that he should be in the ER, not getting new orders. But you know how it is. Heâs the only man for the job. (read the rest of this shit…)
Resident Evil (2026)
I come bearing good news: the new RESIDENT EVIL movie is a very fun time, even if you never played one of the games in your life, even if you wouldnât notice that it âfeels like game play,â even if âa more faithful adaptation of the gamesâ does not remotely sound to you like a good alternative to 14 years of trend-chasing Paul W.S. Anderson joints about Milla Jovovich doing flips and stuff. I mean come on. How ya gonna keep eâm down on the farm after theyâve seen Milla flying around doing Matrix shit in 3D? Or at least, how are ya gonna keep me. I wasn’t looking for RESIDENT EVIL without the main thing that RESIDENT EVIL means to me. If not for some theories Iâve heard about auteurs I would not have gone to see this reboot on opening day.
Letâs face it, as a never serious, long retired game player, there is almost no chance I will ever play or see somebody play these games. Itâs honestly none of my business what they’re about. Donât even tell me, Iâll cover my ears. But I respect the games for the movies theyâve inspired. I really got a kick out of four of the six Milla joints (just not the first and last ones), and I thought the unrelated WELCOME TO RACCOON CITY was fun too.
But this is probly the best one. Itâs directed by Zach Cregger, in what sounds in interviews like risky nerd dream fulfillment more than a sellout. I honestly thought the brand name would be a deterrent, but itâs his biggest opening to date. Itâs simpler and more straight ahead than BARBARIAN or WEAPONS, but it moves, rips, etc., and itâs funny as hell. He told the Hollywood Reporter that âpeople really liked the movie, but they thought it was too funny. So over the course of my testing, I stripped out as much of the jokes as possible.â I believe it, actually, because this has that rare, perfect EVIL DEAD II tone: so many laughs from the lead character and the absurdity of the situations, but not at the expense of the horror. Not a horror-themed comedy, but legit horror with a great sense of humor. (read the rest of this shit…)
The Stupids (and the conclusion of 1996 – Slam Evil Summer!)
August 30, 1996
As I often say, writing about comedies can be hard, because humor is so subjective. I always end up listing parts that I (and not necessarily you) think are funny. And today I’m trying to write about a comedy that was universally shat upon. It was nominated for Razzies for Worst Picture, Worst Director and Worst Picture, and I could not find any positive reviews from the time; I couldnât even find any that didnât call it âpainfully unfunnyâ or similar. It was also a flop, making around a 7th of its budget in theaters. I am not aware of it ever being subject to any kind of re-evaluation, and when Nathan Rabin wrote about it in 2011 he classified it as a fiasco. But my objective today is to try to explain why, since 1996 and continuing through 2026 and the foreseeable future, I have found THE STUPIDS, directed by John Landis (in his follow up to BEVERLY HILLS COP III), to be extremely laugh out loud funny. I sincerely canât fathom why a normal, joyful person would have a reason to look down on it, and not find it at least a little amusing. But they donât. And I have to try to convince them to change their ways. Wish me luck! (read the rest of this shit…)
Hope
HOPE is the new movie from the great South Korean director Na Hong-jin, his first since the horror movie THE WAILING nine years ago. Before that he did two really excellent, bleak crime movies, THE CHASER (2008) and THE YELLOW SEA (2010). This shows some of the detail, personality and mastery of those films, but itâs Naâs version of going into blockbuster mode – a big, action-packed monster movie. And though it shares some of the matter-of-fact horrors of his previous movies (itâs not the anti-septic death and destruction weâre used to from PG-13 Hollywood), itâs pleasant by comparison, because itâs very funny, and even a little warm at times. (Other times itâs mean as hell.)
Oddly, a movie it kept reminding me of was TREMORS, because itâs about the quirky residents of this small, rural area called Hope Harbor gathering their resources to deal with some crazy shit involving a monster. The lead is the police chief, Ko Bum-seok (Hwang Jung-min, THE WAILING), who in the opening scene pulls up to the spot where some guys found a dead cow with giant claw marks on her. His second cousin Ko Sung-ki (Zo In-sung, HUMINT) has gathered some of the boys and their hunting rifles – thereâs a great running joke that Bum-seok keeps being surprised by how many illegal guns everybody has – and they tell him about sightings of a tiger in the area. Heâs incredulous until they insist and tell him detailed stories about it, but later we find out they were just fucking with him. (read the rest of this shit…)
The Trigger Effect
August 30, 1996
David Koeppâs THE TRIGGER EFFECT is the last movie in this review series that I hadnât seen before. Itâs not one anybody seems to talk about, so I couldâve gotten away with skipping it. Iâm glad I didnât, though. I donât think itâs good, but itâs deranged in a really odd way that I appreciate.
It opens with two coyotes playing tug-of-war with a dead animal, then howling, then walking past a power station. This is meant to encapsulate the movie because itâs about people not getting along during a power outage.
But for now the lights are on, and thereâs a DePalma style tracking shot witnessing a chain of small conflicts between strangers at a mall: a drink spilled on a shirt, the person spelled on bumping into a lady and offending her boyfriend, etc. – and itâs a very unsettling intro because for one five minute shot we get this onslaught of characters and incidents where not one person ever reacts to anything in a way that seems natural to me. The culmination is in a movie theater lobby where a woman (Kerri Vickers) strolls past two long lines of customers, right up to the concession counter and just starts ordering. The person who was next in line, Raymond (Richard T. Jones, RENAISSANCE MAN), calls her on it, but she says, âWell, I didnât see youâ and goes back to orderingâĶ so he leaves without buying anything. (read the rest of this shit…)
The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996) – 30th anniversary revisit
August 23, 1996
I donât remember knowing anybody else like this, but I loved THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU at the time. It was a big summer movie, hugely expensive by New Line Cinema standards, but it was sci-fi horror, and rampant with outstanding Stan Winston makeup effects. It had more of Fairuza Balk fresh off of THE CRAFT, but this time she grows cat fangs. I knew that Ron Perlman (CRONOS, THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN) was under the makeup of the goat man called âThe Sayer of the Law,â and Mark Dacascos (CRYING FREEMAN) was the leopard man Lo-Mai, but I didnât know who Temuera Morrison (BARB WIRE) was yet so I didnât know it was motherfuckin Jango Fett as the dogman Azazello. A great character Iâll come back to in a bit.
The crucial thing about the movie is that it was defiantly, extravagantly weird. Watching it now I realize how much of it tonally and texturally reminds me of NIGHTBREED, but since it starred two big time movie stars it wasnât marketed as weirdo shit. It was marketed toward a mainstream crowd, and they didnât like it. Nor did any of the other crowds. But sometimes you gotta stay away from crowds.
There are many possible criticisms of the movie, a few I might even agree with, but the popular one that to this day infuriates me is the claim that Marlon Brando is bad in it as Dr. Moreau. Unsurprisingly he won the Razzie and Stinkers Bad Movie Awards for Worst Supporting Actor, so for the record thatâs the company you keep if you hate this performance. The way they talked about it at the time it seemed like it wasnât a performance, it was documentary footage of Marlon Brando misbehaving. Why is he on set wearing white makeup and a weird hat, riding a popemobile, making weird speeches, playing a piano duet with a little mutant pal? How unprofessional! He was supposed to be the normal version of this character. Why did he do it unlike anything weâve ever seen? Why must he be so captivating and bizarre and hilarious? What an embarrassing bungle, that they accidentally did this. I want to talk to the manager. Iâm calling the cops. Iâm going to sue.
Gary Thompson in Philadelphia Daily News: âwith comical dialogue that can only have been meant to elicit laughter.â Oh, you think so? You think so? (read the rest of this shit…)
Solo (1996)
August 23, 1996
SOLO is a sci-fi action movie starring Mario Van Peebles (EXTERMINATOR 2, DELIVERY BOYS, RAPPINâ, JAWS: THE REVENGE, POSSE, FULL ECLIPSE, GUNMEN, HIGHLANDER III, PANTHER) as an android super soldier. General Clyde Haynes (Barry Corbin, MY SCIENCE PROJECT) explains the idea upfront: âHeâs proficient at all types of combat. He has no family, no friends, not even a Social Security number. If heâs wounded beyond repair, we throw him away. No guilt, no worries, no medical benefits. No one will cry when Solo is gone. Weâll simply build another one.â (Personally I think it’s rude that he says that right in front of him.)
One issue with this two billion dollar program comes out in the first mission we see, an attack on an airstrip being built for rebels in an unnamed South American country. (No, not Val Varde, I think I would recognize it.) When Solo sees that civilians are being forced to build the airstrip it clearly upsets him, and he overrides his commands to avoid blowing them up. (Also he takes home a tarantula as a pet.) Thereâs a great part where the humans detonating the bombs on the outskirts have given up on Solo and abandoned him, then thereâs a thunk on their helicopter and heâs hanging from the bottom.
Afterwards his creator (?), the young hotshot scientist Dr. Bill Stewart (twentysomething Adrien Brody!) can sense his trepidation, and is impressed that a program somehow has emotions. (Disclaimer that I feel like I need to include in every other sci-fi review now: this is a completely not real sci-fi concept that has poetic meaning in fictional stories, but if someone today is telling you it will really happen they are a scammer, a mark, or a kook, in my opinion.)
The General and especially his asshole colonel Frank Madden (William Sadler, BILL & TEDâS BOGUS JOURNEY) are pissed at Solo, who argues that heâs programmed to prevent harm to noncombatants. Madden, of course, claims the civilians count as combatants because theyâre âworking forâ the rebels. (read the rest of this shit…)
The Fan (1996)
August 16, 1996
THE FAN is one of those movies I saw at the time, thought was pretty decent, didnât think much about for 30 years, watched again, still thought was the same pretty decent. In fact, I might have to bump that up to pretty good.
One good thing about it is the same thing that happens when you watch many of the Tony Scott movies, even lesser ones: you remember that god damn, movies used to look good. The cinematographer is Dariusz Wolski, whoâd just shot CRIMSON TIDE for Scott, but also heâs the guy who did THE CROW, and later DARK CITY, and then he did some Gore Verbinskis and Tim Burtons, and then a whole bunch of Ridley Scotts. A high ranking cinematographer of my lifetime, in my opinion. So here heâs doing those hazy orange Tony Scott skies, heâs making shots of the most routine shit look god damn beautiful, heâs staging business meetings in conference rooms with magic hour light shining through slit blinds, just ridiculously beautiful shots in a regular olâ stalker thriller.
In his followup to CASINO and HEAT, Robert De Niro stars as Gil Renard, a very serious fan of the San Francisco Giants. Not just a guy who watches the games and has the hats and bobbleheads and shit (though of course he does), heâs also a regular sports radio caller, apt to defend his team, for example when radio personalities Jewel Stern (Ellen Barkin, MAN TROUBLE) and Bernie (Kurt Fuller, MIRACLE MILE, NO HOLDS BARRED) are a little too hard on the highly paid new player Bobby Rayburn (Wesley Snipes between WAITING TO EXHALE and MURDER AT 1600). (read the rest of this shit…)
Onslaught
After spending nearly a decade making the literally gigantic FX extravaganzas GODZILLA VS. KONG and GODZILLA X KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE, director Adam Wingard has returned to the territory of YOUâRE NEXT and THE GUEST – horror/action/thriller hybrids where he doesnât have as much money but can kinda do what he wants. This time heâs armed with that blockbuster experience and a bigger small budget (three times as much as THE GUEST) courtesy of A24, so he and his long time writer Simon Barrett (FRANKENFISH) had a chance to really let âer rip. I thought. Maybe next time.
I hope other people will get more out of it than I did. It has many of the elements for a movie I could love. Adria Arjona (TRIPLE FRONTIER, 6 UNDERGROUND, MORBIUS, HIT MAN, but mainly Bix from Andor) is very charismatic as Celeste, a cynical war vet who purposely isolates herself in a desert town, living in and managing a trailer park, her only loves in the world the daughter she has partial custody of and the illegal stockpile of guns in the cabinet. Sheâs not ready when her more responsible ex (Jacob Scipio, WITHOUT REMORSE) drops off young Daisy (Blake Kennedy) on an unscheduled weekend. She missed the text about it because she was out shooting jack oâlanterns. So compared to everyone else she is pretty ready for the other unexpected guests, the rampaging super soldiers who escape from a nearby secret military site and start killing everybody. (read the rest of this shit…)
Escape From L.A. (30th anniversary revisit)
August 9, 1996
John Carpenterâs ESCAPE FROM L.A. is a movie that I still like, but (kind of like THE FRIGHTENERS) not as much as I did at the time. Come to think of it maybe part of that was that Carpenter had been, up to that point, almost entirely a video experience for me. When I saw BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA in the theater I was too young to be aware of who the director was. ESCAPE FROM L.A. was the first time I was purposely watching a John Carpenter film on the big screen, excited to see Kurt Russell play Snake Plissken again, his theme music blasting through the then-state-of-the-art THX sound system.
But I remember people trashing it at the time. Carpenter hadnât done a sequel before, they didnât like seeing him rehash a previous story, they didnât like seeing c.g. in one of his movies, at least not like this. In many cases, I have to say, they really didnât get the joke. I was, and still am, a person that finds it funny to move the anti-hero from a classic â80s urban dystopia over to the west coast and make him surf with Peter Fonda. Not everyone feels that way. Theyâre missing out on some of lifeâs beauty, in my opinion.
Okay, the c.g. complaint, I still get that. There are shots that look bad for the time, and that was 30 years ago. On the other hand, Iâd guess itâs around 30 seconds of screen time, and lit murkily enough that it doesnât look as shiny and ridiculous as most of the similarly budgeted stuff from the same era. One of those shots is underwater at night. What I found interesting on this viewing was that as the movie ages it looks and feels much more like ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK than it seemed to at the time, when it felt too current. The arc of time is starting to merge them. (read the rest of this shit…)
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