FORCE OF EXECUTION (2013) ** ½

Steven Seagal stars as a gangster who sends his right-hand man (Bren Foster) to perform a hit in a prison.  When he kills the wrong man, Foster must atone for his mistake.  A rival boss has his men tie Foster down and cripple his hands, causing him to go into early retirement.  Foster then spends his time as a bum living above Danny Trejo’s diner.  Meanwhile, a criminal fresh out of jail (Ving Rhames) makes a play for Seagal’s territory.  Seagal then must bring Foster out of retirement to take Rhames down.

Force of Execution is a tad better than expected for a latter-day Seagal effort.  The gang war plotline is cliched, but there are enough solid moments to keep you watching.  Things improve once Rhames gets out of jail and starts turning the heat up on Seagal.  (It should also be noted that although Rhames plays a character who’s been in prison and is named “Iceman”, this doesn’t seem to be an Undisputed sequel as far as I could tell.)

Sure, the film is overlong and a bit over-plotted, but Foster’s plotline helps to make it memorable.  His road to redemption is reminiscent of the original Django with Franco Nero as they both must overcome having their hands crippled by the bad guys.  Nero never had Danny Trejo in his corner though.  Trejo’s character just so happens to be a “Mexican witch doctor” who intentionally lets poisonous scorpions sting Foster’s hands to help them heal quicker.  I have no idea if this has any basis in medical fact, but it certainly makes for a cool scene.

Foster is a talent to watch too.  Even though his character can’t use his hands for much of the movie, he still does a great job kicking ass without them.  He's a solid actor as well and reminded me a bit of Scott Adkins in some of his scenes. 

Seagal is marginally more invested here than usual.  The scene where he lovingly talks about his gun collection is nice.  The way he goes on about them is enough to make you think they aren’t props, but actual pieces from his collection.  While he spends most of the movie sitting behind a desk, he does get up to kick a little ass in the final reel.  It’s here where he dons the scarf and sunglasses look we now associate with the modern era of Seagal films.  (He’d later adopt similar looks in Sniper:  Special Ops and Code of Honor.)  If only he got out from behind the desk sooner, this might’ve been a *** deal.

TRASH (1970) * ½

Trash was the second part of director Paul Morrissey’s trilogy of low budget underground films produced by Andy Warhol.  It looks and feels cheap and amateurish in just about every way.  I guess if it wasn’t for the nudity, rampant drug use, and use of trans actresses it would’ve been promptly forgotten.

Joe Dallesandro stars as a junkie who gets high so often that he can’t get it up for his lover (Holly Woodlawn).  Most of the movie is devoted to interchangeable scenes of Dallesandro shooting up, trying, and failing to get it on with different women.  Trust me when I tell you that this is all less than riveting stuff.

Things start to look up in the third act though.  It’s here where things turn into a deranged soap opera as Holly catches Joe cheating on her with her very pregnant sister.  I also enjoyed the ending where Holly and Joe try to fake a pregnancy in order to collect welfare.  There’s also a scene in which Holly fucks herself with a beer bottle that has to be seen to be believed.  

It’s a shame that the first hour is so damned dull because the last half hour is pretty bonkers.  You can almost imagine John Waters was taking notes while watching Trash when he was preparing Pink Flamingos.  Whether or not you can get that far will depend on your willingness to sit through long, boring scenes of heroin-induced erectile dysfunction.

THE TRUST (2016) ***

Nicolas Cage stars as a cop who works in the evidence room who yearns for a better life.  Maybe he’d be okay if his captain treated him like a human being.  Instead, he only talks to Cage when he needs him to set aside evidence he wants for himself before it goes up for grabs at a police auction.  

When Cage stumbles upon a receipt for a lowly busboy who was bailed out on $200,000 cash, it gets him thinking.  Together with his pal Elijah Wood, a crime scene investigator, they decide to put a tail on the guy and see what his story is.  Their hard work eventually pays off when they discover the whereabouts of a mysterious vault.  Naturally, the pair decide to try to break in and rob it.

Before you ask, yes, The Trust features a great latter-day Cage performance.  He doesn’t phone it in, although he doesn’t go full-blown crazy Cage either.  He’s definitely more tweaked and weird than your typical leading man.  Whether he’s applying liberal doses of sunblock to his nose, making bad jokes at inappropriate times (like saying "you know the drill" before Wood is about to drill into the safe), or repeating words over and over again in anger, Cage is always a joy to watch. 

Wood makes for a good foil.  He acts incredulous to most of Cage’s behavior and his blank stare during Cage’s more manic moments is a nice balance of acting styles.  Still, his character sticks with Cage, mostly because he doesn't have anything better to do (which probably describes Wood’s offscreen willingness to play straight man to Cage).  They are so good together that you wish they’ll get paired up again real soon.  Oh, and if you blink, you’ll miss Jerry Lewis in his final film role as Cage’s dad.

The heist stuff is rather standard issue stuff I’m afraid.  If you came hoping to see some sort of ingenious Ocean’s 11 style heist, you’re going to be disappointed.  However, as a character study of two down-on-their-luck losers, it works.  (There are long stretches that feel like a two-character play.)  Although the plot itself is low key, Cage’s energetic performance helps to liven things up considerably.   

AKA:  The Trust:  Big Trouble in Sin City.

JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE (2017) *** ½

The original Jumanji involved some kids playing a jungle-themed board game that caused a bunch of wild animals to spring out of the game and wreak havoc.  Since that was twenty-two years ago, Welcome to the Jungle updates things for the modern era.  This time around, the kids get sucked into the Jumanji video game.  The filmmakers were wise enough not to update things too much.  Since the game system is clearly modeled on ‘90s 16-Bit technology, the non-playable characters recite their pithy dialogue again and again until the players decide what to do.  It’s a small touch, but a welcome one for people who remember (and still play) those old games.  

In fact, the whole movie is like that.  It’s a little better, funnier, and more heartfelt than it really needed to be at just about every turn.  Because of that, it’s not only a worthy sequel to Jumanji, it manages to be even better.

Given the fact that the cast includes The Rock, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan, and Jack Black as the video game characters pretty much guaranteed this was going to be fun one way or another.  Even if the script was weak, the chemistry between the leads could’ve easily pulled it off.  Since the teens are stuck inside the characters’ bodies, it opens to door to a series of endless comedic possibilities.  The Rock, Hart, Gillan, and Blark gleefully have fun externalizing the teenage characters that inhabit them, which leads to several big laughs throughout the picture.  (The Rock and Gillan have a kiss that undoubtedly will go on to win Best Kiss at the next MTV Movie Awards.)

While director Jake (Orange County) Kasdan milks the premise for all its worth, he also does something unexpected:  He makes the body-switching stuff surprisingly sweet.  I mean Black could’ve played the part of a teenage girl trapped inside a middle-aged man’s body sophomoric and crude (and yes, there is some of that here), but he manages to make the transformation seamless and dare I say, endearing too.  By the end of the movie, you even begin to care about him/her, which is something I definitely wasn’t expecting.  This is simply some of the best body-swapped acting since Face/Off.  

Kasdan does a fine job with the various animal attacks and motorcycle stunts, and has fun with playing around with the concept of being trapped in a video game (the players only have three lives).  The only debit is the boring and thoroughly one-dimensional villain.  The fact that the villain is played by the usually gregarious Bobby Cannavale makes it that much more disappointing.  Still, you have to love the random Tim Matheson extended cameo.

RED WATER (2003) **

Oil drilling in the Louisiana bayou causes a hungry bull shark to get loose and chomp down on a bunch of swimmers.  A down-on-his-luck fisherman (Lou Diamond Phillips) is hired by his ex-wife oil executive (Kristy Swanson) to do a survey of the area.  They cross paths with a drug dealer (Coolio) who’s looking to recover some stashed loot from a deal gone sour.  He takes them hostage to look for the money and soon they run afoul of the hungry shark.

Red Water starts off with a bang when a beautiful bathing beauty gets eaten by the shark.  Director Charles Robert Carner (who also wrote Gymkata, Blind Fury, and Christmas Rush) delivers a decent jump scare during this sequence, which lead me to believe this was going to be a better than average SYFY Channel Shark movie.  Once the dull drug dealer subplot (not to mention the even duller oil drilling subplot) takes over, things get awfully tedious.  I guess Carner is trying to say that humans are just as deadly as man-eating sharks, but the way he does it his ham-fisted at best.  

When the shark is front and center, Red Water is a watchable effort.  Although the shark attacks are few and far between, the shark effects themselves are pretty good and Carner knows how to set up a severed hand gag with the best of them.  Sadly, the stuff on dry land is interminable.  

The cast is better than the film deserves.  Phillips plays things very seriously, which feels a little out of place.  It’s as if no one told him he was starring in a SYFY Channel movie.  Swanson does a fine job in the thankless role that requires her to be both Phillips’ ex AND the face of the corporate villain.  Coolio gets by from basically playing himself, although you wish the script gave him more zingers.

TURBO KID (2015) ***

Grindhouse wasn’t an out-and-out financial success, but it was popular enough to inspire a wave of faux ‘80s exploitation movies.  This subgenre has a tendency to be maddingly uneven though.  For every classic like Hobo with a Shotgun, there's bound to be more than a few Manborgs.  Thankfully, Turbo Kid is one of the good ones. 

Turbo Kid is like a cross between an Ozploitation post-apocalypse actioner and a low-budget rip-off of an Amblin movie.  It even feels like an ‘80s flick as it utilizes many of the fads that were so popular back in that glorious decade.  It may be “the future” (1997 to be exact), but Power Gloves, arm wrestling, and BMX bikes somehow managed to survive the apocalypse.  

In the futuristic wasteland, a teenager (Munro Chambers) ekes out a meager existence by reading comic books and scavenging.  His solitary life is thrown for a loop when he happens upon an energetic android (Laurence Laboeuf) who is all-too eager to become his best friend.     When she is kidnapped by the evil Zeus (Michael Ironside), the kid uses his magic turbo suit (which he found inside an abandoned UFO) to save her.

There are bits here that steal from Mad Max, Rad, and Laserblast.  Directors Francoise Simard, Anouk Whissell, and Yoann-Karl Whissell could’ve easily relied on a making pastiche of ‘80s films and called it a day.  However, they imbue it with just enough heart to make you care about the characters.  Chambers and Laboeuf make for a great team and Ironside (who looks like he’s having a ball) is enormously entertaining as the heavy.  

The filmmakers have fun staging the action.  Imagine Mad Max, but with BMX bikes and that should give you an idea of what they were going for.  They blow the gore up to cartoonish heights too.  Try to keep track of how many times someone is blown in half.  Sure, Turbo Kid has trouble sustaining its premise over an entire feature, but I guarantee fans of ‘80s post-apocalyptic action movies will walk away with a big-ass grin on their face after watching this one.

KINDERGARTEN COP 2 (2016) ***

26 years later, along comes a sequel to Kindergarten Cop that no one asked for.  Having Dolph Lundgren as the star was a nice touch though.  I mean if you can’t get Arnold, you might as well grab the first nearest Expendable you can get your hands on.

Dolph plays a Fed who arrests a big time Russian mobster.  One year later, there is a data breach at the Witness Protection Program’s computer system.  Dolph goes undercover as a kindergarten teacher at a fancy prep academy to find a flash drive that contains the names of people in the Witness Protection Program before the mobster can get his hands on it.

Dolph is pretty funny in this.  There’s a scene where he’s having a bad day and the candy machine won’t give him a candy bar, so he pulls his gun on it.  Later, he body slams the machine onto a bad guy and the candy bar finally falls out.  Bill Bellamy is Dolph’s wisecracking partner who seems to be doing a Martin Lawrence impersonation the whole movie.  They have good chemistry together and I hope they get paired up again real soon.

If you’ve been in a classroom setting lately, you’ll enjoy how Kindergarten Cop 2 sends up the ultra-P.C. atmosphere of the modern-day school system.  The expression on Dolph’s face when he realizes he can’t say “sit Indian Style” anymore is priceless.  (There’s also an announcement that the school is taking the word “Holiday” out of their “Holiday Play” as to not offend the agnostic students.)  There are also some funny jabs at the expense of the spoiled, pampered rich kids.  The scene where Dolph eats a peanut butter sandwich in a “peanut-free zone” is good for a laugh as are the jokes about kids who need to eat gluten-free diets.  

Maybe it’s because I went in with low expectations, I found Kindergarten Cop 2 to be pretty damned funny.  I laughed about ten times as much as I expected.  It’s definitely a worthy sequel to the original and is easily the best Dolph Lundgren in a School movie since Detention.

BOOK OF NUMBERS (1973) ***

The ‘70s was the highwater mark for Blaxploitation movies.  It was also the heyday of period gangster pictures that were inspired by the success of Bonnie and Clyde.  Book of Numbers represents one of the few times the two genres intersected.

Raymond St. Jacques (who also directed) and his protegee Philip Michael (Miami Vice) Thomas come into a small southern town and set up a numbers operation.  It’s an overnight sensation and that of course, makes the white gangsters take notice.  Naturally, a war starts between the two factions.

Book of Numbers could’ve been content being a black action movie, but it’s much more than that.  It also functions as a slice of African-American life during the Depression era.  There are little touches like seeing the characters have family dinners and attending church that a white filmmaker might’ve forgone in favor of more plot and/or action scenes.

It’s also pretty funny too.  I liked the part when D’Urville (Dolemite) Martin and his pals dressed up in KKK attire to ransack a place.  Of course, they wind up running into the real deal and a fight breaks out.

Even at a relatively-scant 81 minutes, there are a few lulls here and there.  Thomas’ narration is a bit extraneous in some scenes too.  However, the dynamic between St. Jacques and Thomas is endearing enough to make up for a lot of its shortcomings.  There’s a scene late in the picture where St. Jacques must humiliate himself in front of a white courtroom to save his operation that drives a wedge between him and Thomas.  Their interaction in the next scene is an interesting depiction of not only race relations in the south, but also of the generation gap between African-Americans as well.   

THE BEGUILED (2017) *** ½

Sofia Coppola wrote and directed this beautiful and haunting remake of Don Siegel’s 1971 classic.  It’s a case where the remake works just as well, if not better than the original film.  That probably owes more to the strong source material than anything, but Coppola does a marvelous job on all fronts.  

Colin Farrell is in the Clint Eastwood role as a wounded Union soldier who is nursed back to health by the headmistress (Nicole Kidman) at an all-girl school in Confederate territory.  Confined to his bed, Farrell makes eyes with just about any girl he can while his leg heals.  Naturally, he makes time with one of the girls, which makes Kirsten Dunst jealous, so she throws his ass down the stairs.  With his leg busted up even more, Kidman has no choice but to chop that baby off, which turns Farrell into a goddamn madman.

Coppola is gentler in her approach than Siegel.  She tackles the material from the female perspective, which changes the impact slightly.  When Kidman amputates Farrell’s leg, it’s out of necessity rather than spite.  While it lacks the gut-punch feeling of Siegel’s film, it nevertheless works on an emotional level.  The way Coppola slowly builds Farrell’s relationship with the women is expertly done.  I liked seeing how the usually plain ladies started doing their hair and wearing their best brooches in an unconscious effort to impress their captive.  Coppola also does a wonderful job at creating a slow burn atmosphere within the house.  Once things catch fire, the tension truly smolders.

This also happens to be the best remake Farrell’s starred in recently.  It’s much better than the crummy Total Recall, the unnecessary Fright Night, and the unwanted Miami Vice remakes.  Heck, I even liked it more than S.W.A.T.  

THE COMMUTER (2018) **

Liam Neeson is a man with a particular set of skills.  He knows how to open an action movie in the dead of winter.  His new film, The Commuter shamelessly borrows elements from his previous efforts.  It’s basically Non-Stop, but on a train instead of a plane.  We also have someone playing mind games with him a la Unknown.  Oh yeah, and what would a Liam Neeson flick be if his wife wasn’t in danger, just like the Taken series?  As a fan of Neesonploitation, I’m sad to report that even with his long-time collaborator, director Jaume Collet-Serra aboard (heh), this is by far his weakest wintertime actioner. 

Collet-Serra gives us two nifty sequences.  The opening scene that shows Neeson’s character’s mundane existence of boarding the same train every morning is expertly done.  I also liked the long tracking shot that shows not only the geography of the train, but the list of potential suspects as well.  These two scenes would make Hitchcock himself proud.

Hitch would have scoffed at the thin plot, weak script, and predictable plot twists though.  He would’ve also sent the shitty CGI train wreck sequence back to the shop for a touch-up.  Heck, he probably would’ve insisted on using models.  That way, it wouldn’t have looked like something out of a goddamn video game.  

Despite the less-than-stellar material, Neeson refuses to phone it in.  His performance of an Everyman trying to find a certain passenger in a short amount of time in order to save his wife is easily the best thing about the movie.  I honestly thought he’d given up action movies after the excellent Run All Night.  The Commuter is proof he should’ve quite while he was ahead.

 AKA:  The Passenger.

ORGY OF THE DEAD (1965) ****

A writer named Bob (William Bates) takes his girlfriend (Pat Barrington) on a midnight ride to a cemetery to get inspiration for his newest horror tale.  Along the way, they get into an accident and are knocked unconscious.  Meanwhile, The Emperor of the Night (Criswell) rises from his tomb and holds court in the graveyard.  He is joined by a sidekick modeled on Vampira (Fawn Silver) and they watch as several undead strippers dance.  (“If I am not pleased by tonight’s entertainment I shall banish their souls to everlasting damnation!”)  

First up is a Native American dancer (“she died in flames”), then a hooker does a striptease in front of a skeleton.  Eventually, the couple wakes up and make their way to the cemetery to watch the girls dance.  Just when you think it can’t get any better, the Mummy and the Wolf Man show up to capture the couple and tie them up and force them to watch more girls dance.

In short, Orgy of the Dead is one of the greatest movies ever made.  It was a collaboration between director Steven C. Apostolof and screenwriter Ed Wood.  While they went on to work on a slew of nudie movies together (including the immortal Fugitive Girls), this was their first and best outing.

Although Apostolof was at the helm, there’s still plenty of Wood trademarks here.  The appearance of Criswell, the stilted dialogue (“Torture!  Torture!  It pleasures me!”), shots that alternate between day and night, and guys covering their faces with Dracula capes means this would make a great double feature with Plan 9 from Outer Space.  I mean you have monsters, naked girls, bondage, Ed Wood dialogue…  What more could you possibly want from a movie?

Orgy of the Dead is essentially a series of burlesque dance routines held together with a B horror movie.  That is to say, it’s awesome.  The dances are actually pretty good too.  There are plenty of topless women gyrating about and Apostolof films it all in glorious fashion.  One girl (also Barrington) gets pelted with gold by two dudes in striped sarongs before being dipped in gold.  (The Goldfinger influence is heavy.)  In another, a woman in a cat suit gets whipped while she dances.  Other dances include a bullfighter’s wife, a zombie, and a woman in a wedding dress.  The excellent, fog-shrouded graveyard adds a level of sexiness to the routines.  They wouldn’t have been nearly as hot if they took place in an ordinary strip club, that’s for sure!

I know Plan 9 gets all the accolades, but Orgy of the Dead contains some of my favorite Ed Wood lines ever.  The best dialogue exchange comes when Bates and Barrington stumble upon the nude dancers in the graveyard.  Barrington asks, “Is it some kind of college initiation?”

Bates replies, “It’s an initiation alright, but not to any college as you or I know it!”

The Vinegar Syndrome blu-ray is jaw-droppingly gorgeous.  The film has simply never looked better.  The graveyard sets look lush and the red dye jobs on the dancers really pop.  If you’re a Wood fan, you owe it to yourself to check it out.  I can’t wait till they release Fugitive Girls!

AKA:  Orgy of the Vampires.

WARRIORS OF FIRE (1987) ** ½

Here’s yet another Godfrey Ho and Tomas Tang cut-and-paste Ninja epic.  It’s part Ninja action flick, part Vietnam movie, and part rape and revenge thriller.  It’s not great or anything, but it’s more entertaining than most of their incoherent offerings.

The Red Ninja is after some vital blueprints necessary to his organization, so he captures his old army buddy and tries to make him reveal their location.  When he doesn't give in, the Red Ninja has his fiancée raped and killed.  Her sister discovers her body, and begs the White Ninja to train her so she can get revenge. 

It doesn't get any better than the first scene.  We see the bad guy out golfing, but something is a bit off.  He’s in the woods, not on an actual course.  It becomes painfully obvious when he sinks his putt, which is nothing more than a freshly dug hole in the ground!

Then, when he has some important papers to file… BAM!  Out of nowhere, a Ninja appears to grab his paperwork!  Yes folks, there are Ninja secretaries in this movie.  I don’t know about you, but that’s just plain awesome. 

The scenes of our heroine training with the White Ninja are fun.  I especially liked the scene where he tattoos her body to permanently remind her of her quest for vengeance.  Once the Vietnam flashbacks start getting heavy, the fun starts to dry up.  By the time Ho takes to blatantly ripping off the Russian roulette scene from The Deer Hunter you know he’s grasping at straws.  Still, there’s enough nuttiness in the first hour to make this a mostly enjoyable Ho/Tang collaboration. 

AKA:  Ninja and the Warriors of Fire.  AKA:  Ninja 8:  Warriors of Fire.

SNIPER: SPECIAL OPS (2016) **

Since I found Code of Honor surprisingly enjoyable, I thought I’d double down and see Steven Seagal’s OTHER 2016 sniper movie, Sniper:  Special Ops.  I guess I should’ve known lightning wouldn’t strike twice.  Still, it’s far from Seagal’s worst Direct to Video effort.

Despite the title, this has nothing to do with the Tom Berenger/Billy Zane movies, although it’s about on par with them.  Seagal plays a sniper who is left behind enemy lines with a wounded comrade in Afghanistan.  Tim Abell is the squad leader who is given orders not to stage a rescue mission.  When he comes face to face with the daughter in-law of a Taliban bigwig, he uses her as a bargaining chip to extract his men.

This would make a great double feature with Code of Honor, not only because Seagal plays a sniper, but because of how little he’s in it.  Also, he spends most of his screen time sitting in a chair talking to his buddy who’s lying wounded on the floor.  As with Code of Honor, you can tell by the way it's shot and edited that he and Seagal weren't even on the set at the same time. In fact, I'm not sure Seagal even acted alongside anyone in the cast.

Oh, and did I mention this was directed by Fred Olen (Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers) Ray?  He’s one of my favorite modern-day exploitation filmmakers, but the film itself is much too bland to really compete with his best stuff.  The script is a bit too one-note (it uses war movie clichés that have been around since the ‘40s) and there isn’t a whole lot of action.  Still, I got a kick out of seeing his usual stable of actors (like Jay Richardson) popping up here and there.

The funniest thing about the movie is the DVD art.  I love how it touts “Seagal” and “Van Dam” as if people who can’t read will be suckered into thinking it’s a team up between Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme.  Really, Van Dam is none other than pro wrestler Rob Van Dam, who plays one of the military grunts.  He doesn’t do enough to really deserve that kind of billing, but you have to admit it’s makes for great cover art.

I, TONYA (2017) ***

I think the Tonya Harding story had the makings of a great movie, but the filmmakers never quite find the right in.  If the story was told straightforward, it could’ve been a tawdry, trashy good time.  Instead, director Craig (Lars and the Real Girl) Gillespie and writer Steven (Stepmom) Rogers go for a weird hybrid of a faux-true crime documentary and quirky indie comedy.  Like Tonya herself, it’s full of grit and spunk, but it never quite sticks the landing.

Margot Robbie does well as Tonya Harding, who strives for Olympic ice skating gold, even though she is pretty much pure white trash.  Because of that, she never gets an even break with the judges.  The film chronicles the bickering between Tonya and her suffocating mother (Allison Janney) and her tumultuous relationship with her husband Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan) as she tirelessly competes year after year.  Thinking they need an edge, Jeff and his nitwit friend (Paul Walter Hauser) plot to “scare” Harding’s rival Nancy Kerrigan (Caitlyn Carver) before an upcoming competition.  Naturally, the guys they hire take things way too far and wind up busting Kerrigan’s kneecap, causing an international sensation.

As Fargo did so well before, I, Tonya shows us that most criminals aren't the masterminds you see in the movies, but your typical everyday dumbasses.  The movie also has fun showing everyone recalling slightly different versions of who did what and how much they really knew about the attack on Kerrigan.  However, by doing it this way, the character of Tonya becomes something of an enigma.  It might’ve played better had we seen her as either a total innocent or as a full-blown co-conspirator.  

Another debit is the on-camera interviews of the actors in make-up recounting the events that led up to the attack.  Although much of what they say is taken from actual transcripts, they nevertheless feel a bit showy and stagey.  They also eat up a lot of screen time.  Again, I have a feeling if everything was told in a more linear fashion the whole thing would’ve flowed better.  

I’m not saying it’s a bad movie or anything.  The cast are all aces and there are plenty of big laughs.  However, you get a sense that a straight documentary on the subject would be more fascinating.  (The real-life interview footage that accompanies the end credits kind of proves my point.)

Maybe it’s me.  Maybe it’s just because I remember seeing the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan scandal unfold in real time on TV news and on the tabloid rack.  Maybe real life is weirder than any movie.

You do walk away feeling pity for Tonya, which is something I did not expect.  You get the feeling that there are more Tonyas than Nancys in the world.  One thing is for sure, there wouldn’t have been enough dirt on Nancy to fill a feature length movie.

Robbie is quite good as the spunky, perpetually beaten (in both senses of the word) Tonya.  Stan also does a good job at playing dumb as her clueless, but abusive husband.  It’s Janney though who up and steals the film as Tonya’s acid-tongue mother.  I honestly think the Best Supporting Actress Oscar is a two-woman race this year between Janney and Laurie Metcalfe for Lady Bird.   I’d be equally pleased if either of them won because they both richly deserve it.

CODE OF HONOR (2016) ***

Code of Honor is probably Steven Seagal’s best Direct to DVD movie.  For sheer unintentional laughs, I’d still stick with Out of Reach, but this is definitely his most polished and involving DTV action flick since Pistol Whipped.

I admire the fact that Seagal is at a point in his career where he can just sit behind a sniper rifle to hide his ever-expanding girth while wearing sunglasses and a goatee for most of his screen time.  I swear, he spends about 80% of his screen time sitting down.  When he’s not sitting behind a sniper rifle, he’s sitting in the shadows of a strip club watching women dance in slow motion. He probably wasn’t even on set the same day because he's only shown sitting in front of a pink glittery curtain.  In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find him in a shot containing any of the other actors.

Another jaw-dropping fact about his character is that he doesn’t have any lines of dialogue until 45 minutes into the movie.  Props to Seagal for finding projects in which he can grab a paycheck from doing the barest minimum possible.  I think even late-era Brando would be impressed.  

However, there’s a REASON why you see so little of Seagal in the movie.  The kicker is that it honestly makes sense.  I won’t spoil it for you because it is one of the genuine treats the film has in store for you.

Code of Honor plays like a mash-up of The Punisher and another movie.  I won’t tell you which one because you’ll immediately guess the twist ending.  Anyway, Seagal is a sniper who is singlehandedly taking out kingpin James Russo’s crime syndicate.  Craig Sheffer is the mysterious federal agent who is hunting Seagal who waltzes in and complicates detective Louis Mandylor’s investigation.  

I’ve sat through a lot of these things and I can honestly say Code of Honor is a truly good one.  It’s competently, even stylishly at times, made and features some decent action.  Writer/director Michael Winnick uses Seagal’s fleeting appearances to maximum advantage.  Some will undoubtedly be disappointed by the lack of wrist-snapping action in this one, but Sheffer makes for an acceptable Seagal substitute as he is constantly jamming knives into bad guys every twenty minutes or so.   

THE GREATEST SHOWMAN (2017) ***

I got a Movie Pass for Christmas.  If you’re unfamiliar with it, it’s basically a pre-paid credit card that let’s you see a movie a day for free.  One of the benefits of having a Movie Pass is that you can take a chance on a movie you might’ve otherwise skipped.  After all, it’s free, so what do you have to lose?

I’m not the biggest fan of musicals, but my daughter wanted to see The Greatest Showman, so I figured I’d tag along with her and check it out.  As it turns out, it’s a solid family-friendly movie that audiences of all ages should enjoy.  I can’t say that the songs are particularly great (they eventually start to sound the same after a while), but they are performed with such warmth and heart by the earnest cast that they are hard to dismiss.  

The film acts as a loose biography of P.T. Barnum (Hugh Jackman) as it follows his meager upbringings as a tailor’s son to circus impresario.  Barnum makes a name for himself when he opens a museum dedicated to human oddities and uses real-life freaks in his show to draw crowds.  He then uses his newfound social standing to rub it in the faces of those who looked down on him all his life.  When he takes a stab at promoting legitimate theater with a beautiful opera singer (Rebecca Ferguson), it drives a wedge between Barnum and his wife (Michelle Williams) and he almost loses his family. 

The Greatest Showman is at its best when it shows the camaraderie between Barnum and the freaks.  Since he is the rare person who makes the effort and tries to get to know them, they agree to join up with his circus.  He gives them a platform to perform and assures them that yes, people will most assuredly laugh at them.  However, people are going to be laughing no matter what, so they might as well get paid for it.  

The family drama with Williams and Jackman’s two daughters is fairly absorbing and the subplot where Zac Efron and Zendaya fall in love is rather charming too.  The only real weakness stems from the rushed pacing as Barnum goes from being down on his luck to high as a kite so much that he often seems bipolar.  You wish that there had been a little room for the character to breathe a little bit in between his losses and triumphs.  Some of that has to do with the way some of the songs are shoehorned into the narrative.  Other than that relatively minor quibble, The Greatest Showman is a lot of fun and is a great vehicle for the charms of Jackman who shows there’s bound to be plenty of life after Wolverine.

RE-KILL (2015) ** ½

Re-Kill is the most popular reality show in the future post-zombie outbreak America.  The show revolves around a camera crew following a SWAT team on patrol as they clear the streets of “Re-An’s”.  So, basically, it’s Cops, but with zombies instead of criminals.  

Just when I thought I didn’t want to see another Found Footage zombie movie, along comes one that manages to breathe a little life into the tired genre.  It’s consistently better than you’d expect (although to be honest, I wasn’t expecting much), and I was surprised by just how clever the film was.  By “clever”, of course, I mean, it more or less rips off Starship Troopers.  Throughout the movie, there are several commercial breaks filled with futuristic ads and overt government propaganda (and like Starship Troopers, there’s even a coed shower scene).  The commercials promoting repopulation (they look like something out of a Skinamax movie) and the cigarette ads are the most amusing.

This is a Found Footage zombie movie after all, so unfortunately, you’re stuck with a lot of irritating shaky-cam camerawork and rapid-fire editing.  It would’ve been headache-inducing had it not been for the commercial breaks, which offer a welcome respite from all the shaky-cam nonsense.  The crappy camerawork and editing also means that the gore scenes are cut to ribbons.  What gore there was looked pretty good, but it’s hard to say for sure when you can barely get a glimpse of it.  

The reality show gimmick doesn’t always work, but it certainly has its moments.  The filmmakers stick pretty close to the Cops formula, which garners a few laughs.  It’s nice to know that in the future, criminals will still have their face blurred out when they’re being arrested on television.

I’m not going to lie, the only reason I watched this was because Scott Adkins was in it.  Sadly, he doesn’t get to show off his impressive martial arts skills.  While I would’ve loved seeing him Kung Fu some zombies, he still manages to show his acting range playing the loudmouth asshole of the team. 

WAR PIGS (2015) ** ½

Mickey Rourke sends Luke Goss and Dolph Lundgren to whip the eponymous army unit into shape and get them ready for battle.  After the grunts gradually earn Goss’ respect, they receive orders to go behind enemy lines and bring back information on a new superweapon the Nazis have been tinkering with.  When two of Goss’ men are captured by the Germans, he rallies the troops together for a rescue mission.

Director Ryan Little makes the most of the film’s slim budget.  Although it’s relatively slow going at the outset, things heat up nicely during the third act.  If you’re patient enough, you’ll be treated to some decent WWII action.

The funniest thing about War Pigs is Rourke’s character.  I guess Little couldn’t talk Rourke into cutting his hair or taking off his white cowboy hat.  I’ve seen some sights in my time, but seeing Mickey Rourke wearing a cowboy hat and long hair trying to pass himself off as a WWII colonel will be hard to forget.

Dolph does a good job as a French foreign legion captain.  He and Goss make for a solid team.  If only Dolph was given more to do than to ask Goss, “Do you think the men are ready?” every ten minutes.  Goss, looking grizzled and miserable, wears his Army fatigues in an authentic manner.  He looks like he just walked out of a Sam Fuller flick.  Contrast his appearance with that of Rourke.  They look like they came out of two different movies. 

I just wish the war pigs themselves were a bit more distinguishable.  They all seem interchangeable and fail to make much of an impression.  At all times they look like a bunch of struggling 21^st century actors trying to pass themselves off as wisecracking Army grunts.  They aren’t great or anything, but they look much more authentic than Rourke.  

AKA:  Saints and Soldiers:  War Pigs.

THE RUNNER (2015) **

After the devastation of the BP oil spill, Congressman Nic Cage makes a passionate speech to Congress that gains nationwide attention.  Using the momentum of the speech, he sets out to make real changes for his Louisiana fishing community.  Soon after, he gets embroiled in a sex scandal and is ultimately forced to resign.  Months later, he comes out of hiding and works as a pro bono lawyer to help fishermen affected by the spill.  He also begins an affair with his married publicist (Sarah Paulson), which could harm his future political chances.

The Runner is well-acted and earnest enough, although it’s hardly what you would call engrossing.  I mean it’s hard to really sympathize with Cage’s character.  It’s almost as if the sole audience for this thing was disgraced, alcoholic, sex-addicted Congressmen with marital problems.  That’s a very narrow market to capture, but I guarantee that if you’re a disgraced, alcoholic, sex-addicted Congressman, this will be right up your alley.  

Fans of Cage’s onscreen high jinx will no doubt be disappointed as he is much too subtle in this to make it memorable.  Even though he’s playing a character struggling with alcoholism, he never once reaches into his grab bag of Cagey tricks and achieves the same level of alcoholic antics of Leaving Las Vegas.  I’m not saying that a full-blown Cage performance could’ve saved this lackluster drama, but it definitely couldn’t have hurt.

The supporting cast is strong though.  Cage’s Ghost Rider co-star Peter Fonda has some good moments as his disgraced former politician father.  Fonda and Cage have enormous chemistry in their scenes together.  When you look at them bantering back and forth, you can almost see the movie The Runner wanted to be.  Connie Nielsen is solid as Cage’s long-suffering wife and Paulson is better than the film deserves as the new object of Cage’s affection.

THE BEGGAR OF NO EQUAL (1980) **

Confession Time:  It was hard to tell what the hell was going on half the time in The Beggar of No Equal because the subtitles were often completely unreadable.  The horribly cropped transfer cut off about half the words on the screen.  If a line of dialogue was more than five words long, I was shit out of luck.  To make matters worse, the subtitles themselves were often blurry and hard to make out.  At least the litany of misspelled words was sometimes good for a laugh. (“Dame you!")

The plot, as much as I could surmise, focused on a shirtless guy whose job was protecting a sacred book of herbs.  Meanwhile, a badass government official goes around kicking the asses of townsfolk who don't cotton to the king’s rules, which admittedly are pretty bullshit and are mostly made up just so this guy can kick their ass.  Anyway, this cute Kung Fu fighter enters the fray and beats the snot out of a lot of people.

It was here where things started getting a little hazy.  The shitty subtitles were mostly to blame, but I admittedly started zoning out halfway through because I started losing track of the plot.  There is a decent plot twist at the end though.  It might have had some impact if I knew what was going on for the half-hour or so before that.

Because of subtitle snafu, the only way to really grade The Beggar of No Equal is on the Kung Fu action.  Sadly, the fight sequences don’t occur often enough to make up for the unintelligible plot.  In general, the fight scenes were okay.  They’re definitely nothing you haven’t seen before.  Then again, the cropping is so bad that you sometimes can’t even see who the hero is fighting.  

POTTERSVILLE (2017) **

I was so enamored by Michael Shannon’s performance in The Shape of Water that I went out looking for another Shannon film in hopes of seeing him once again chew the scenery like a madman.  Now The Shape of Water of course was all about a fish man finding love with a mute woman.  Incredibly enough, the plot to Pottersville is just as weird.

Shannon plays a meek nice guy who owns the general store in his small snowy hometown.  One day, he decides to leave work early and surprise his wife (Christina Hendricks) and is dismayed to find her dressed in a bunny costume and having “furry sex” with Ron Perlman (who likes to dress in a wolf costume).  I try not to be too judgmental when it comes to folks’ sexual eccentricities, but these two make the fish man sex in The Shape of Water look downright conventional by comparison.

Anyway, Shannon does what anyone would do in that situation:  Go out and get drunk on Ian McShane’s moonshine.  Feeling despondent, Shannon dresses up in a gorilla costume in hopes of winning back his wife.  His drunken costumed escapades in the town makes everyone think Bigfoot is on the loose and soon, the place becomes a booming tourist trap.  A reality show host (Thomas Lennon) even shows up with a camera crew looking to capture the beast.  Shannon continues the charade and runs around like Sasquatch to keep the town’s morale up, but predictably everyone turns their back on him when he’s ultimately unmasked.

On the surface, Pottersville looks like your typical Hallmark Hall of Fame Christmas movie, but the slightly warped plot pretty much guarantees little white-haired old ladies will not be amused.  The fact that the plot hinges on kinky animal costume sex (even though no skin is ever shown) is probably enough to make sure it’ll never be shown on the channel.  While it’s just a tad weirder than your average Christmas flick, it’s not nearly weird enough to be consistently entertaining.

Even though I really like the guy, I’ll be the first to admit that Shannon is badly miscast.  They really needed someone bland in the lead.  When he tries to act “normal” and be “nice”, he just comes off looking like a serial killer.  Imagine if Rondo Hatton replaced Jimmy Stewart as the star of It’s a Wonderful Life with a furry sex subplot and that might give you an idea of what we’re talking about here.

Some will want to watch it just for the fact that Hendricks plays a sex-starved woman with a furry fetish.  You’ve got to wonder about her character though.  I mean she leaves Shannon for Perlman.  It’s almost enough to make me think I have a shot with her.

All of this might’ve been worth a damn if it was actually funny.  Although I got a kick out of seeing Ian McShane as a crusty hunter doing a good imitation of Robert Shaw’s big scene in Jaws, for the most part, the gags fall flat.  Even the usually reliable Lennon fails to generate any laughs.

If you’re a Bigfoot fanatic with a furry sex fetish in need of a Christmas movie, look no further.  Pottersville has got you covered.  Everyone else will probably be left scratching their head.  

BATTLE OF THE SEXES (2017) ***

Before Andy Kaufman wrestled women in bouts of intergender wrestling buffoonery, Bobby Riggs challenged women tennis players to show man’s superiority on the tennis court.  Of course, that all backfired on him when Billie Jean King mopped the court with Riggs on national television.  Battle of the Sexes is a dramatized version of the events leading up to that fateful match.

While Riggs (Steve Carell) runs his mouth and puts on a good show for the cameras, King (Emma Stone) tries to keep her head down and train hard for the match.  She’s hoping that all the publicity will allow her to make a stand for equal rights and feminism.  She doesn’t want any needless distractions around.  Naturally, that’s just what she gets in the form of Marilyn (Andrea Riseborough), a hairdresser she becomes romantically entangled with while on tour.  Since this is the ‘70s we’re talking about, King must keep the relationship quiet because if the media found out about her lesbian affair, it would bring an abrupt end to her career.  

Directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (who also collaborated with Carell on Little Miss Sunshine) get a bit heavy-handed while delivering the movie’s messages.  A lot of the on-the-nose dialogue hammers home King’s dilemma with the subtlety of a hundred-mile-an-hour tennis serve.  Once the film switches gears and turns into an honest to God sports movie, it quickly rights itself and becomes a rather irresistible underdog story.  The finale is surprisingly suspenseful too, even if you already know the outcome.

The thing about Riggs is, he’s pretty likeable.  He’s not an out-and-out bad guy.  He just misses the limelight and sees the battle of the sexes matches as get-rich-quick scheme.  He goes so over the top with his whole male chauvinist performance (his insults are kind of funny) that he becomes a caricature of a villain.  I mean he can be only taken about as seriously as your average wrestling heel. 

Even King doesn’t really have a problem with his overboard blustering.  Her real issue is with the sexist men behind the scenes who want hold women back.  While Riggs is using the chauvinist thing as a publicity stunt, these guys actually talk the talk.

The cast is uniformly excellent and help to anchor the movie whenever it threatens to get too preachy.  Carell gives a terrific performance and makes what could’ve been a one-dimensional cretin likeable and well-rounded.  The scene where he goes to Gamblers Anonymous and puts down the people in the group for being bad gamblers is hysterical.  Stone does an equally fine job as King.  Halfway through the movie, you kind of forget it’s her, which is about as good of a compliment as you can give.  The supporting cast is a veritable who’s who featuring everyone from Bill Pullman (sexist asshole) to Elizabeth Shue (Riggs’ long-suffering wife) to Fred Armisen (Riggs’ “vitamin consultant”), all of whom do a great job.  Alan Cumming in particular does wonders, giving a thinly-written role a hefty amount of gravitas.