WELCOME TO THE PUNCH (2013) **

James McAvoy stars as an obsessed cop who will stop at nothing to bring down bank robber Mark Strong.  McAvoy is wounded in an unsuccessful attempt to apprehend him and Strong completely disappears off the face of the earth.  Three years later, Strong’s son winds up getting in a serious jam, forcing him out of hiding.  It’s then up to McAvoy to catch him before his very narrow window of opportunity closes.

Welcome to the Punch is a slick looking police procedural that benefits from some crisp cinematography, but it’s also curiously empty and surprisingly uninvolving.  It often feels like a BBC cop show with a couple of F-Bombs tossed in there to secure an R rating.  The various shootouts occur at a random clip and are staged efficiently enough.  It’s just that they don’t add up to a whole lot when you care very little about what’s going on around them.  

I’m a fan of both leads, and they do what they can with the material.  Ultimately, the weak script never gives them much of an opportunity to flesh out their thin characters.  The predictable plot, while well-paced, never stops long enough to make them into people you really care about either.  They wind up feeling more like cogs in the wheels of the plot machinery than actual human beings.  Andrea (Mandy) Riseborough fares the best as McAvoy’s spunky partner.  She comes the closest to creating someone approaching a three-dimensional character, but unfortunately, she doesn’t stick around long enough for that to happen.

Welcome to the Punch isn’t necessarily a bad movie.  It’s just a predictable and forgettable one.  It’s competently crafted and well-acted, I’ll give it that.  Overall, it doesn’t pack much of a punch.

AKA:  Punch 119.  AKA:  Betrayer.  

SPENSER CONFIDENTIAL (2020) ***

As a fan of detective novels, I’m almost ashamed to say I’ve never read any of Robert B. Parker’s Spenser books.  I did, however, watch the awesome show Spenser for Hire starring the one and only Robert Urich with my old man back in the day.  This new adaptation of the character (which went straight to Netflix) doesn’t quite have the same feel to it, but it is nevertheless a solid Marky Mark movie.

Marky Mark stars as Spenser, a cop who goes to prison for beating up a corrupt superior.  On the day he gets out of jail, the dude he turned into a human punching bag gets murdered.  When a good cop confesses to the crime and commits suicide, Spenser smells a rat.  He then teams up with his new roommate Hawk (Winston Duke) to weave through the web of corruption that involves dirty cops, the Irish Mob, and machete-wielding gang members to clear the good cop’s name.  

The first half hour or so of Spenser Confidential is a little rough as it takes an inordinate amount of time to set up the plot and characters. Although the first act is kind of belabored, once we get to know the characters and the writing hits its stride, it becomes quite fun.  (It kind of reminded me of a television pilot in that respect.)  It also suffers from way too many irritating needle-drops on classic rock tunes during transition scenes.

I wasn’t sure how to feel about Marky Mark as Spenser.  He doesn’t really click until the murder plot kicks in.  From then on, he becomes as good of a Spenser as you could hope for.  He has a good rapport with Duke, who is probably the best thing about the movie.  There’s enough chemistry between the two for me to hope for a sequel, now that the cumbersome origin story is out of the way.  

The supporting players are expertly cast too and help give the picture a little more life and spark than you’d expect.  Alan Arkin is quite funny as Spenser’s crochety mentor, who practically steals the show, and Marc Maron makes a welcome turn as a nosy reporter (although you kind of wish his part was bigger).  I also enjoyed seeing Colleen Camp popping up as a trucker.

Director Peter Berg probably will never regain the heights of his directorial debut, Very Bad Things, but he does a decent job with this.  He lets the small character moments play out unrushed and keeps the camera still during the various fight scenes and shootouts.  While I wish the film overall was a bit tighter, I have to admit that by the time Spenser was bearing down on the bad guys in a jet-black semi-truck, I was having fun.

MIDNIGHT SPECIAL (2016) ****

Jeff Nichols’ Midnight Special is a quiet, patient, and powerful movie.  It doesn’t insult the audience’s intelligence by spelling everything out for them.  It unfolds like a fine novel, offering the viewer warm characterizations, uplifting moments, and genuine surprises along the way.  

Taken at face value, it is an amalgam of John Carpenter’s Starman, Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Mark L. Lester’s adaptation of Stephen King’s Firestarter.  There are moments here that freely borrows elements from all three pictures, but Nichols distills their best qualities into one package, and skillfully weaves them together into a wholly unique tapestry of road picture, family drama, and sci-fi wonderment.  

The set-up is simple.  Michael Shannon enlists the help of Joel Edgerton to rescue his son (Jaeden Lieberher) from the clutches of a cult who believes the boy is the ticket to their salvation.  Shannon knows of his son’s special gifts and is desperately trying to reunite him with his mother, played by Kirsten Dunst.  Meanwhile, the FBI is after them and the cult members are also in hot pursuit.  

Like Nichols’ previous collaborations with Shannon, Shotgun Stories and Take Shelter, Midnight Special is a movie about the power of belief and the courage to follow your convictions, even if it borders on fanatism.  I loved how driven both Shannon and Edgerton were that the kid is special and worth risking their lives for.  You don’t even necessarily have to show what makes him so special (although they don’t waste much time doing so) because Shannon and Edgerton believe it so much that you immediately find yourself believing as well.  You instantly get swept up with the characters and are rooting for them every step of the way.  

This is kind of a perfect movie.  The fact that it failed to find an audience at the box office goes to show that.  I can easily imagine someone stumbling upon it on cable and getting hooked into it.  You don’t find great movies.  Great movies find you.  Midnight Special is going to stick with me for a long, long time.

HAPPY DEATH DAY 2U (2019) * ½

There’s a scene about halfway through Happy Death Day 2U where the heroine Tree (Jessica Rothe) says, “I am so done with this shit.”  After watching this back to back with the original, I was starting to feel the same way. 

It begins with a minor character from Happy Death Day finding himself experiencing the same time loop that Tree was stuck inside.  After a lot of longwinded exposition and boring scenes of characters spouting unending scientific gobbledygook about alternate dimensions and multiverses, Tree winds up stuck in a parallel universe that almost (but not quite) resembles her own.  Unfortunately, that means she is still stuck in a perpetual loop where gets killed on a daily basis.  It’s then up to her boyfriend and his team of science nerds to send Tree back to her own time before the psycho in the baby mask finishes her for good.    

The first thing you notice about Happy Death Day 2U is that Rothe looks considerably older than she did in the first movie.  I don’t know if this was done on purpose.  I guess it makes sense since she’s literally been through Hell dozens of times.  My guess is that you can only make a thirtysomething actress look like a college student for so long.

Like its predecessor, Happy Death Day 2U rips off Groundhog Day once again.  This time, it’s even more blatant, especially in the scene where Tree kills herself over and over again.  (Right down to the bathtub suicide.)  At least these moments have some blood (like the woodchipper scene), unlike the bone-dry original.  The movie doesn’t stop at ripping off Groundhog Day.  It also borrows from Halloween 2, lifts the killer reveal from Scream, and the score blatantly steals from Back to the Future. 

Overall, Happy Death Day 2U is more chaotic and less cohesive than the first movie.  Clocking in at a whopping 100 minutes, it’s also overlong to boot.  Still, I’d say it’s slightly better than the original, if only because the scenes of Tree reconnecting with her dead mother hit an emotional chord that was sorely missing the first time around.  It doesn’t completely redeem the character of Tree (who’s just as annoying as she was in Part 1), but it does show that Rothe has a bit more range than you might have originally thought.

AKA:  Happy Birthdead 2 You.

HAPPY DEATH DAY (2017) *

Happy Death Day is a slasher version of Groundhog Day.  That premise is so idiotic and yet so simple that you can imagine a creatively bankrupt Hollywood exec hearing the pitch and then greenlighting it immediately.  The problem is, it’s all pitch and no movie.  

A thoroughly annoying college student (Jessica Rothe) wakes up on her birthday and is killed by a stalker wearing a baby mask.  She then wakes up on the same day and is forced to relive her murder again and again.  Each time she tries to outrun her destiny, the jackass baby face is still is somehow able to kill her.

I can’t believe this became a big hit and spawned a sequel.  Like I said, it’s so idiotic and simple that it just stands to reason that it would clean up with the teenage bubblegum crowd that wouldn’t know a real horror movie if it bit them.  I guess the premise could’ve been tolerated if the gore factor was jacked up or there was a bunch of nudity.  As it is, it’s another one of those watered-down PG-13 deals, so the kills (which almost always revolve around Rothe) are bloodless and weak, and the only nude scene is shown from the back.  

Much of the problem is due to Rothe, who kind of resembles an off-brand Bella Thorne.  Her character is so unlikeable, you’re actually rooting for her to get offed.  Unfortunately, the movie can’t even deliver on that because the kills are like something out of a CW show.  

I mean, her character’s name is “Tree” for fuck’s sake.  At first, I thought it was a nickname.  Like she was an ecology nut.  Or perhaps it was short for something, but no.  Her name is fucking Tree.  I think the moment that cemented my hatred of her came when the characters discuss Groundhog Day and she has no clue what they’re talking about.  She deserved a gruesome death just for that.  

I’m not saying ripping off Groundhog Day is the worst idea in the world.  Remember when Edge of Tomorrow did the same thing?  In that instance, it was all good because that movie took the inspiration and did something novel with it.  No such luck with Happy Death Day.  The filmmakers take an already slim idea and then do absolutely jack shit with it.  There’s even a scene where the filmmakers try to redeem Tree by having her do good deeds for the people she sees every single day, but it comes off less as a moment of character redemption and more like, “Hey, what part of Groundhog Day haven’t we ripped off yet?  Oh yeah, that part where Bill Murray starts doing good deeds.”  The ending is also painfully predictable, which only adds to the feeling of interminable agitation.

AKA:  Happy Birthdead.  AKA:  Half to Death.

CROCODILE (1981) *

I’ve seen a lot of bad Jaws rip-offs in my day, but Crocodile just may be the worst one of them all.  It was produced by Dick (Pieces) Randall, who re-edited and rereleased a Thai killer crocodile flick called Crocodile Fangs on an unsuspecting public.  Somehow, he managed to make it even more incomprehensible.

A hurricane caused by atomic testing ravages a seaside resort.  The storm awakens a giant crocodile that begins gobbling up tourists left and right.  A doctor quits practicing medicine when his entire family is wiped out by the killer croc.  Eventually, he and his buddy get help from a local fisherman to finally stop the crocodile’s reign of terror.

The editing in this movie ranks among the worst in film history.  The attack scenes are especially inept.  First, we see a swimmer or a duck or something splashing in the water.  Then, the editor cuts to a crocodile blinking.  Next, we see the same bather or what have you frolicking around before they are promptly killed by a jump cut.  

The disaster movie-inspired hurricane scenes are even worse.  The shots of piss-poor grass hut models being overran by cascading water are a complete joke.  I did get a laugh though when the locals get killed by the ensuing typhoon, which is to say they just open their front door and get hit in the face with a bucket of water.  

Then there’s the ending.  It features incongruous shots of men in a boat, a toy boat in a bathtub, a fake rubber crocodile, and nature footage of a croc swimming around somewhere.  Finally, there’s a big explosion (READ:  There is a moderate splash in the water), and the movie slowly winds down trying in vain to gaslight us into thinking something actually happened.  

The whole movie is like that.  There are long scenes where nothing happens (the nighttime scenes are so dark you can’t make anything out), and when it finally does, the editing is so schizoid that your brain can’t even process it.  This is especially true whenever the filmmakers try to make the crocodile look enormous by having a regular crocodile walk through a shitty model set.  Then, the next time we see it, it’s nothing but nature footage of a croc, so it just looks regular size.  It’s as if each successive shot makes less sense than the one that came before it.

Since this is a Jaws rip-off, there are all the scenes that you’d expect to see from the subgenre.  (POV shots of the beast slowly inching toward unsuspecting swimmers, a crotchety fisherman agreeing to help catch the beast, shots of the water turning red whenever someone is eaten, etc.)  However, when it’s trying to do its own thing, the film is usually pretty funny.  I admit, I got a big laugh from the part when some divers tried to catch the croc by using a giant bear trap that looked like something out of a Wile E. Coyote cartoon.  

Those silly moments are few and far between though.  Most of Crocodile is a senseless, depressing, and inexcusable bore.  Put in another way, it’s a giant croc of shit. 

AKA:  Bloody Destroyer.  AKA:  Giant Crocodile.    

THE MARK OF ZORRO (1920) ****

When I was a kid, I was weaned on Zorro reruns on The Disney Channel.  (Remember when The Disney Channel played cool shit like that and not the hot garbage they show now?)  As I grew up, I enjoyed the Antonio Banderas movies just as much, if not more.  Somehow, I never saw Douglas Fairbanks as the original Zorro.  I mean, I saw Zorro, the Gay Blade and even The Erotic Adventures of Zorro, but not the original.  Since I enjoyed Fairbanks in The Thief of Bagdad a few months ago, I figured to give this one a shot.  

This is about the purest hit of swashbuckling action you could hope for.  It moves like lightning and the swordfights, feats of derring-do, and stunt work are jaw-dropping.  Never mind the fact this movie is a hundred years old.  It rocks and it rocks hard.  

Captain Ramon (Robert McKim) is obsessed with capturing the masked man Zorro who goes around avenging wronged Native Americans who have been abused at the hand of the Captain’s men.  He tells of his inability to best Zorro to the rich bachelor Don Diego (Fairbanks) blissfully unaware that Diego is in fact Zorro.  Meanwhile, Diego’s father pushes him into an arranged marriage with Lolita (Marguerite De La Motte) who finds him to be a cold fish.  Zorro on the other hand, she has the hots for.  When Lolita and her family are imprisoned by the Captain, Zorro springs into action to save them.

There is no fat on this thing whatsoever.  It is wall to wall action with the barest minimum of plot development.  That works in the movie’s favor.  Because of that, we learn about the characters not through dialogue or plot devices, but through their deeds.  The action itself is breathtaking, funny, and rousing, and the romance comes naturally from the two leads’ chemistry.  

You can see how this movie inspired everything from Batman to The Lone Ranger to The Dread Pirate Roberts.  Fairbanks cuts such a dashing figure that his Zorro deserves mention alongside those iconic characters.  You can also imagine the creators of Superman taking a page from Zorro’s secret identity here as Don Diego is a bit of a dork.  He’s always fatigued, doing magic tricks, or making shadow puppets, which easily makes him more like Clark Kent than Bruce Wayne.  

Also, we have to talk about how progressive this movie is.  Nearly every single western at the time and for decades to come portrayed Native Americans as villains or stereotypes.  Zorro sticks up for them, which is refreshing.  He also protects victims of sexual harassment and teaches their attackers a lesson.  Heck, when he rescues the damsel in distress he even lets HER give him a kiss, which tells us he knows a thing or two about consent.  Dude, Zorro is woke as fuck.  And this was a hundred freaking years ago.  

What elevates Fairbanks’ Zorro into the upper echelon of movie heroes is the way he inspires the people around him to take action against the villains.  He doesn’t just do good.  He inspires others to greatness.  That right there is the true mark of a hero.

BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN (1925) *** ½

During quarantine, I’ve devoted most of my movie-watching time to lightweight, disposable entertainment.  (Aside from the occasional downbeat and depressing flick like Tetro and The Nightingale, that is.)  Looking back, I should’ve spent that time on films I SHOULD have seen by now, but somehow haven’t.  I’m not going to make a fulltime column about it or anything, but going forward, I will try to try and catch up on some of the all-time cinema classics that have somehow escaped me all these years.  

We start by going all the way back nearly a hundred years with Sergei Eisenstein’s highly influential Battleship Potemkin.  This is one of those movies that’s been copied so many times over the years that I’ve seen not only the movies that have ripped it off, but also the movies that ripped off the rip-off.  (For example, I’ve seen The Untouchables, which rips off the iconic Odessa Steps sequence from this flick AND Naked Gun 33 1/3, which parodies the scene in The Untouchables, but I’ve never seen the original.)  How did it stack up?  Let’s see!

First, a quick plot rundown.  Russian sailors grow increasingly dissatisfied with their untenable work environment aboard the titular vessel.  Things come to a boiling point when they’re expected to eat maggot-ridden meat.  When the captain threatens to shoot the men for not eating their inedible food, the sailors stage a revolt.  One sailor dies during the mutiny and the incident sparks the people of Odessa to call for a revolution.

The first thing we notice about Battleship Potemkin is that if you strip away the black and white and subtitles, it’s a very modern looking film.  The editing is much tighter and refined than most of the silent films of the era.  There’s a rhythm to the editing that most pictures of the time lacked which helps makes the mutiny scene quite suspenseful.    

The vast crowd sequences are also impressive.  There was no CGI back then.  Nope, Eisenstein had to corral hundreds of extras and capture it all on film, which gives these scenes an added dimension of awe. 

Then there’s the Odessa Steps sequence.  It’s as every bit as good as its reputation.  Not only is it surprisingly suspenseful (even if you are already familiar with the basic beats of the scene), it’s surprisingly bloody (for the time) too.  

The problem is, after that scene, the movie continues on for a good fifteen minutes or so.  While the conclusion is fitting, it’s nowhere near as suspenseful or memorable as the Odessa Steps sequence.  There’s a reason why filmmakers rip that scene off and not the finale.  Still, despite the lukewarm climax, Battleship Potemkin remains a quintessential building block in the foundation of the language of cinema.  For that alone, movie buffs are sure to enjoy it.

AKA:  Potemkin.  AKA:  The Armored Cruiser Potemkin.  

ALL DOLLED UP: A NEW YORK DOLLS STORY (2005) ** ½

In the mid-‘70s, rock photographer Bob Gruen and his wife Nadya bought a (then) state-of-the-art video camera and used it to capture one of the greatest rock bands of the era, The New York Dolls as they approached their zenith.  He was able to gain nearly unrestricted access to the band as they toured the west coast, interviewing them, filming their backstage antics, and recording them playing to packed houses as they belt out such classics as “Looking for a Kiss”, “Personality Crisis”, and “Human Being”.  

I’m genuinely a fan of Gruen’s work.  As a noted rock photographer, he captured some of the most iconic photos of some of the most iconic bands of the ‘70s.  I just feel that maybe video wasn’t his forte.  Thanks to his photographer’s eye, much of the footage looks great, it’s just a shame the sound quality is often poor (which is a pretty big deal when you’re making a documentary about music).  The interview segments aren’t all that enlightening either.  I know the Dolls aren’t exactly the deepest band in the world, but the questions Gruen asks are superficial, and the backstage day-in-the-life minutia he captures is mostly inconsequential too.  

There are some nice moments to be sure.  I dug the scene where the Dolls are hanging around an airport waiting for their flight.  The expressions on the squares and little old ladies who gawk at them are priceless.  I also liked seeing the Dolls shopping for lingerie at Fredrick’s of Hollywood.  These segments are fun.  It’s just that there’s not a whole lot here to hang an entire documentary on.

Even die-hard fans of the band (like me) might be left a little cold by this one.  Many performances are cut to ribbons, or just shown in snippets.  Sometimes, we even hear the same snippets of songs, just sung at different venues.  It would’ve worked better had Gruen allowed the performances to play out in their entirety.  Whenever the numbers start to gain momentum, Gruen just cuts back to more ho-hum backstage shenanigans, which is frustrating.  I did like the addition of news footage about the band playing Max’s Kansas City though (featuring a none-too impressed Joel Siegel).  

Overall, All Dolled Up:  A New York Dolls Story feels less like a snapshot of the band as they reach the crest of their wave, and more like an assemblage of home movies.  Some fans won’t mind that approach.  In fact, it almost (but not quite) skates by from just featuring the band immortalized in all their glam glory.  Too bad Gruen barely scratches the surface as to what made The New York Dolls so great.  

SO YOUNG, SO LOVELY, SO VICIOUS… (1975) **

Angela (Gloria Guida) becomes upset when she learns her dad is about to marry Irene (Dagmar Lassander from Werewolf Woman).  She sets out to break the pair up by getting her boyfriend Sandro (Fred Robsahm) to seduce her.  Turns out, Irene fancies women more.  Angela then takes it upon herself to get her would-be stepmom in bed and get it all on film in order to break up the upcoming marriage. 

Directed by Sylvio (Amuck) Amadio, So Young, So Lovely, So Vicious… starts off great.  He gets a lot of mileage out of just letting the camera focus on Guida.  She has an undeniably sexy screen presence.  There are many scenes where she is just sitting there half-naked that are almost hypnotic to watch, thanks to her immeasurable beauty.  Lassander is equally hot as the older, more mature, but ever-so sultry stepmother. 

The film is at its best when it’s building up the sexual tension between the two women.  Unfortunately, all this build-up winds up being a big bust.  Not only does it take forever for the two ladies to consummate their burning desire, but by the time they finally get it on, we’re denied the big love scene between them!  Instead, all we get to see is nothing more than a handful of black and white photos!  What a rip-off! 

To make matters worse, the final act is soggy, soap opera-y, and predictable.  The long chase scene eats up a lot of screen time, and the conclusion tries for a big tragic finish, which is an awkward fit considering all the smut that came before.  Whenever Amadio is concentrating on the interactions between his two leading ladies, So Young, So Lovely, So Vicious… is scintillating stuff.  Too bad it’s ultimately all tease and no please. 

Amadio and Guida teamed up once again the following year with That Malicious Age. 

AKA:  Sins of Youth.

NORTHVILLE CEMETERY MASSACRE (1976) **

Watching Northville Cemetery Massacre, it’s apparent directors William Dear and Thomas L. Dyke walked out of Easy Rider and said to each other, “Hey!  That movie’s a success and they only killed two bikers in slow motion at the very end.  Let’s make a flick in which fifteen times that many bikers get shot up in slow motion throughout the entire film!  It’s bound to do fifteen times the amount of business!”  

That of course, was not the case.  As far as the biker genre goes, you can do a lot worse, that’s for sure.  However, Northville Cemetery Massacre is far from a good movie.  If it’s one thing this flick does well, it’s shoot up bikers in slow motion, so it does have that going for it.  Imagine if Sam Peckinpah had directed Hell’s Angels on Wheels and that might clue you in on what to expect.

A hippie hitches a ride with a biker gang and attends a wild biker wedding.  While the gang are hooting and hollering, he sneaks off to bang his girlfriend in a barn.  That’s when the cops show up and chase away the bikers.  The asshole cop in charge then takes it upon himself to rape the hippie’s girlfriend.  The cops blames the crime on the bikers and teams up with the girl’s grieving father to shoot a bunch of bikers in slow motion, mostly to cover his ass, but also because shooting bikers in slow motion takes up about a third of the running time.

Northville Cemetery Massacre is mostly notable for being the first collaboration between Dear and The Monkees’ Michael Nesmith.  The two later worked together on Elephant Parts, and another motorcycle-themed movie, Time Rider.  Even though Nesmith is my second favorite Monkee, the music in this isn’t particularly great and sounds about what you’d expect from your average biker flick.

Dear and Dyke don’t do much to keep the story progressing.  It pretty much plays its cards too soon and quickly gets repetitive from there.  By the time the big Massacre does happen, we’ve already grown numb to the sight of seeing bikers gushing blood and guts in slow-mo.  The open-ended ending is a bit of a cop out too, which is kind of a letdown considering all the carnage that came before.

Oh, and if the leading man’s voice sounds familiar, it’s because he was dubbed by none other than Nick Nolte!  

AKA:  Harley’s Angels.  AKA:  Freedom:  R.I.P.

DYING OF THE LIGHT (2014) ***

At first glance, Dying of the Light has all the earmarks of a bad DTV flick.  It was made by Grindstone Entertainment, has a shitty Photoshop poster, and stars Nicolas Cage.  If you look closer though, you’ll see it was written and directed by Paul (Hardcore) Schrader and produced by Nicholas Winding (Drive) Refn, which is hardly the guarantee it will be good, but at least it’ll be interesting or memorable.  Apparently, the studio recut it against Schrader’s wishes, leading him to disown the final product.  I can’t speak to that version of the film, but the one that was released is a couple notches better than your typical Cage DTV flick.

Cage stars as an aging CIA agent who is nearing retirement.  When he learns the man who captured and disfigured him twenty years earlier is still alive, he risks everything to get revenge.  Complicating matters is his recent diagnosis of an advanced form of dementia, which gets increasingly worse at sundown, leaving him prone to fits of rage and the inability to trust his senses.  

I think this might be the first DTV Cage flick in which his character has a medical condition to help explain his over the top Cagey theatrics.  As such, he doesn’t chew the scenery as much as you’d think, but he does have a few choice moments of unbridled thespianism.  In fact, this is one of his best performances in recent memory, no doubt aided by the fact that Schrader was at the helm and he had fine back-up in the form of the late Anton Yelchin, who plays the junior agent who gives up everything to assist him in his quest for vengeance.    

Visually, the film falls well short of something like Schrader’s Cat People, but it does look better than your average DTV fare.  Thematically, it’s similar in some ways to the Schrader-scripted Rolling Thunder, although not nearly as effective.  Despite its flaws (and the fact that just about everyone involved disowned it), Dying of the Light remains a solid thriller that should please fans of not only Schrader, but Cage as well.

Cage and Schrader teamed up two years later with Dog Eat Dog.

AKA:  Dark.

TETRO (2009) ** ½

Bennie (Alden Ehrenreich) goes to Buenos Aires looking for his enigmatic half-brother Angelo (Vincent Gallo) who now insists on being called “Tetro”.  He initially gives his estranged brother a chilly reception, but his feisty girlfriend Miranda (Maribel Verdu) convinces him to let Bennie stay.  Bennie pesters Tetro for information regarding their family’s past and is almost always shot down.  While fumbling around the apartment, Bennie finds one of Tetro’s unfinished plays.  He completes it and enters it into a local festival.  This infuriates Tetro and forces him to reveal a long-suppressed secret.  

Tetro is a throwback to the smaller films writer/director Francis Ford Coppola used to make in the ‘60s before The Godfather changed the trajectory of his career.  It’s obviously a deeply personal movie to Coppola.  He publicly stated at the premiere, “Nothing in it happened, but it’s all true”.  It’s not particularly bad or anything.  It’s just that it will probably mean more to him than the audience.  

I love both leads.  Gallo always brings a fiery intensity to his roles.  This is no exception.  Ehrenreich (in his film debut) is a genuinely charismatic actor.  Separately, they are engaging in the movie.  However, there is just no chemistry between them.  Their styles are like oil and water, and they never quite mesh.  This kind of suits their estranged characters, but it also prevents the viewer from fully engaging in their plight.  

Coppola repeats himself a little bit here stylistically speaking.  The use of black and white with only sparing (but meaningful) use of color is very similar to Rumble Fish.  I like the idea in theory, but it doesn’t exactly work this time around.  The dancing interludes (inspired by The Red Shoes) are gratuitous and needlessly showy.  They could’ve easily been edited out and resulted in a much tighter and more effective movie.

That said, patient viewers will be rewarded with a memorable and powerful final act.  The sudden shift into full blown operatic melodrama isn’t entirely successful, but Coppola sticks the landing admirably enough.  Tetro is clearly personal to Coppola.  Creatively, I’m sure he enjoyed the more experimental tangents the script presents.  That doesn’t mean it works as a whole; but I’m still glad he made it. 

RESCUE ME (1993) * ½

Rescue Me was one of the final films released theatrically by Cannon Films.  It comes to us courtesy of Arthur Allan Seidelman, the director of Hercules in New York.  Here’s the thing, Hercules in New York is a lot more fun.

A young Stephen Dorff stars as the dorky yearbook photographer who has a crush on the head cheerleader, played by Ami Dolenz.  Michael (American Ninja) Dudikoff is a motorcycle riding drug dealer whose transaction is interrupted by Dolenz and her boyfriend.  Things go south, and in the commotion, the buyers (William Lucking and Peter DeLuise) wind up kidnapping Dolenz.  Dorff wants to impress her, so he blackmails Dudikoff into following the kidnappers to rescue Ami.

This weird amalgam of road movie and coming of age story starts off well enough, but it quickly gets bogged down before the journey begins to gather any momentum.  In fact, there are several junctures in which the film grinds to a halt, and Seidelman’s inert direction does little to move things along.  

The comedic shtick lands with a thud, which wouldn’t be so bad if the center of the film (the relationship between Dudikoff and Dorff) worked.  As it is, the scenes of them bonding fall flat.  It really doesn’t help that the coming of age stuff never quite gels with the hostage plot. 

The big problem is that no one really acts like a human being.  What does Dolenz do when she escapes the kidnappers?  Does she go to the cops?   No, she goes to a concert and makes time with the singer.  

Another issue is that there is just no chemistry between Dorff and Dudikoff.  Dudikoff almost gets by from just being Michael Dudikoff, but Dorff is seriously miscast as a nerd.  Lucking and DeLuise aren’t convincing as villains either and are thoroughly annoying to boot.  It’s nice seeing E.T.’s Dee Wallace-Stone hanging around briefly in the thankless role of Dorff’s mom.  The only real bright spot is Chained Heat 2’s Kimberley Kates, who makes a memorable impression in a short amount of screen time as a hooker with a heart of gold.  Sadly, her efforts aren’t enough to rescue Rescue Me.

AKA:  The Infernal Venture.  AKA:  Street Hunter.  AKA:  Streethunter.

WHEN THE BULLET HITS THE BONE (1998) *

A few days ago, I watched a decent Jeff Wincott flick, Martial Law 2:  Undercover.  That got me itching to watch another Jeff Wincott movie.  Unfortunately for me, the one I watched was When the Bullet Hits the Bone.  

Jeff stars as a doctor who becomes disillusioned with stitching up drug dealers, pushers, and junkies.  He quits, crawls into a whisky bottle, and winds up confronting a gunman hassling Michelle Johnson in an alley.  After a lot of back and forth, he eventually agrees to help Johnson and her kid get away from the main baddie who controls the drug flow in the city.  In the process, Jeff comes into possession of a disc that could incriminate a bunch of politicians.

I like Jeff Wincott and all, but it’s a little hard to buy him as a doctor.  He isn’t a bad actor.  It’s just that he’s at his best when he’s allowed to kick a little ass.  Since When the Bullet Hits the Bone doesn’t give him any opportunities to bust out his patented Kung Fu moves, it feels like his talents are being wasted.  Johnson isn’t convincing as the junkie damsel in distress either.

As bad as the movie is, it really drags whenever Wincott isn’t on screen.  The bad guy is weak and his righthand man is even worse.  He has a lame gimmick where he asks presidential trivia before he kills someone.  There’s also an odd scene where he makes an old guy do a bunch of push-ups before offing him.  Speaking of push-ups, the only (unintentionally) funny moment comes when Wincott is doing push-ups and the camera is set way too close to his crotch.

Written and directed by Damian Lee (who also directed Wincott and Johnson in The Donor a few years prior), When the Bullet Hits the Bone is low rent in just about every way.  The overall cheapness of the production coupled with the nearly nonexistent action (the few shootouts we do get are poorly staged) make for a bottom of the barrel affair.  I wouldn’t mind the crappy production values if the movie wasn’t so dull, lifeless, and forgettable.  Also, some scenes suffer from crummy editing and inexplicable use slow motion.  All this might’ve been tolerable if Wincott karate chopped or kicked a bunch of people.  The heavy emphasis on torture doesn’t help.  

The phrase “When the Bullet Hits the Bone”, of course comes from The Golden Earring song, Twilight Zone.  This movie is so cheap, they couldn’t even afford to put it on the soundtrack.  Heck, I’d rather listen to that song played on a loop for 82 minutes straight than watch When the Bullet Hits the Bone again. 

AKA:  Terror Zone.  AKA:  Bullet in the Dark.

THE BLIND MENACE (1960) ***

The last movie I watched was A Man for Emmanuelle, which was kind of like an Emmanuelle movie before they invented Emmanuelle movies.  The Blind Menace is an interesting precursor to the Zatoichi series.  As you all know, the great Shintaro Katsu played the blind swordsman, Zatoichi in over two dozen films.  That character roamed the countryside giving people massages while taking down whatever villain got in his way.  In The Blind Menace, Katsu also plays a blind masseur, but he’s no hero.  (He also doesn’t use a sword either, sadly.)

From an early age, the blind Suganoichi pulls scams on the streets, conning gullible people out of money (and sake).  He soon grows up to be a coldblooded killer and thief.  (He even takes to offering travelers massages before killing them with acupuncture needles and robbing them.)  Eventually, he hooks up with a thief nicknamed “Severed Head” to fleece people out of dough.  In just a few years’ time, Suganoichi goes from running small time scams to being in charge of an organized crime racket.

I must say, it’s a little disconcerting seeing the usually good-natured Katsu robbing, killing, and raping.  He probably sensed the character was better suited as a hero and was wise to tweak the role into what would later become Zatoichi.  The thing is, he’s quite good in the villain role.  It may be an unpleasant movie, but his performance makes it watchable.  As depraved as the character is, you have to give him props for the variety of ways he manages to connive people out of their money.  Katsu was always a bit of a rogue as Zatoichi.  Here, he’s an out and out bastard.  Despite that, he plays the role of the guy you love to hate so well that the final product, while flawed (it’s sometimes sluggishly paced and suffers from a weak third act), is almost always captivating thanks to his considerable acting chops.

Fans of the Zatoichi series will probably disappointed by the lack of swordplay as this is more of a crime picture than a samurai movie.  However, as a vehicle for Katsu, The Blind Menace delivers.  

AKA:  Agent Shiranui.  AKA:  Secrets of a Court Masseur.  AKA:  Shirani, the Blind Court Masseur.

A MAN FOR EMMANUELLE (1969) ***

A Man for Emmanuelle is the first Emmanuelle rip-off.  Actually, it’s the first Emmanuelle movie, period.  While the later “Emanuelle” films were ripping off the Sylvia Kristel series, this one was meant to cash in on Emmanuelle Arsan’s novel, Emmanuelle.  

Erika (The Devil’s Nightmare) Blanc stars as the screen’s first Emmanuelle, although there’s no relation to the character Sylvia Kristel played.  She has the same knack for getting into sexual misadventures, but the big difference here is that this is a nymphomaniac who takes no pleasure in her actions.  In fact, she spends most of her time alone in her home, bored and suicidal.  (She often looks down from her balcony and imagines her dead body splattered on the pavement.)  This should be the immediate tip-off that A Man for Emmanuelle isn’t your ordinary sex flick.

In fact, the nudity is brief and not all that tantalizing.  The camera spends a lot of time looking at her belly, which is an odd focal point for a ‘60s sexploitation movie.  Does Emmanuelle think she’s pregnant?  Or does she have a dysmorphia thing going on where she’s really skinny, but thinks she’s fat?  I’m not sure, but one scene has a Michael Bay-type shot that spins around and round her body with nothing but tummy shots for like thirty seconds straight. 

Unlike most heroines in these kinds of films, Emmanuelle is hoping to find a guy to bang in order to feel something… anything, other than the isolation and loneliness she keeps inside.  When she does go to bed with a man, the expression on her face is so blank that it’s hard to tell if she has succeeded, which is kind of heartbreaking.  Most of her encounters end awkwardly.  Sometimes Emmanuelle fails to seduce her intended conquest, which adds to her frustration.  Eventually, she finds a man who introduces a little violence in with the sex, which helps… somewhat.  Mostly, she spends a lot of her time pining for the older man who deflowered her years ago. 

Blanc is excellent in the lead.  She experiences a whirlwind of emotions throughout and her performance is nothing less than captivating.  It’s also fun seeing Adolfo (Thunderball) Celi turning up late in the game as one of her would-be conquests, a politically minded newspaper editor.

A Man for Emmanuelle is shockingly downbeat and depressing, but it’s also thoughtful and realistic.  It’s definitely not the sort of thing you’d expect from Cesare Canevari, the director of Caligula Reincarnated as Hitler.  He gives the early scenes a feel reminiscent of Repulsion.  This stretch of the film is easily the most complex and interesting.  From there, it kind of fumbles around for much of the second act.  Then again, so does the character.  I did admire that they didn’t go for a storybook ending.  While it’s not your average happy Hollywood ending, it at least allows the character to find some peace, while still refusing to pull any punches.  I found that refreshing.

Rip-off or not, this is a nice addition to the list of countless Emmanuelle movies.  While it doesn’t always work, I was impressed with the way Canevari and Blanc were allowed to explore the concept of trauma in (what would be on first glance be) a typical sex film.  Thanks to their efforts, A Man for Emmanuelle is anything but typical.

THE BORROWER (1989) **

The Borrower was director John McNaughton’s follow-up to Henry:  Portrait of a Serial Killer, and it’s a big comedown from that classic.  With Henry, McNaughton took what was potentially a B movie and elevated it by not shying away from the brutality of the subject matter, allowing his actors to give realistic, natural performances, and capturing the events much like a documentarian.  In lesser hands, it could’ve been a forgettable exploitation item.  With The Borrower, it’s like he made a conscious decision to do the exact opposite of what he did with Henry.  The results are a sloppy, uneven, and only sporadically amusing sci-fi/horror/cop thriller.

An alien that looks like a giant cockroach passes sentence on a criminal in a white void.  His punishment:  Be turned into a human and sent to Earth.  There, he has trouble adjusting, and his head blows up.  The alien then takes to ripping the heads off various citizens to replace the void between his shoulders.  Naturally, he leaves a trail of bodies in his wake, and it’s up to policewoman Rae Dawn Chong to stop him.

This had all the potential to be a great flick.  Think a funkier version of The Hidden, but with a lot of exploding and/or severed heads.  It’s just a shame the script is so damned messy.  It’s admirable that the screenwriters tried to give Chong’s character purpose by having her wrestle with PTSD.  There’s even a long scene where she consoles a rape victim.  However, the subplot with her hunting down an escaped lunatic just feels like filler.  The various run-ins the alien has with society (like the time spent with a bunch of homeless bums) often falls flat too.  Sure, there is an occasional nutty moment, like when a rock video shoot is interrupted by the alien.  It’s just that these wacky moments don’t gel with the solemnly serious detective stuff.

The severed head effects by Kevin Yagher are pretty good.  I don’t know if the MPAA made them cut it down or what, but the film gets lighter on gore as it goes along.  Still, there are some nasty moments here and there, just not enough of them to make it worthwhile.

The cast is solid though.  It’s nice seeing Chong getting a leading role, even if the rest of the movie is subpar.  I don’t know who thought up pairing Chong and Don Gordon, but they have a lot of chemistry together.  Henry’s Tom Towles and Starsky and Hutch’s Antonio Fargas are fun as the Borrower’s first two incarnations.  Too bad his later alter egos don’t convey the otherworldly awkwardness Towles and Fargas bring to the role.

Maybe if The Borrower didn’t come out right after Henry it wouldn’t sting so bad.  Genre fans will probably want to check it out just for the cast alone.  As for me, I can’t say I was head over heels for it.  

AKA:  Alienkiller. 

THE VELOCIPASTOR (2019) **

Sometimes, I think Grindhouse did more harm than good.  Yes, it is one of the best movies of the century.  Yes, it gave Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino a platform to pay tribute to the exploitation films of yesteryear while still allowing them to make pictures that were very uniquely their own.  However, because they purposely made certain aspects of their films look cheap and incompetent, it gave cheap and incompetent filmmakers an avenue to make movies in the Grindhouse mold where they could chalk up their shortcomings to the retro aesthetic.  Like, “I know it’s bad, but it’s SUPPOSED to be bad!”

First, The Asylum perpetrated the Sharknado series upon the world.  Pretty soon, the trickle-down effect led to any old low budget filmmaker who could secure a deal with a video company making would-be cult movies on super cheap budgets.  The thing is, the old exploitation flicks were fun DESPITE their shortcomings.  These newfangled readymade Grindhouse films use their shortcomings as a crutch.  

Part of the fun of Grindhouse was the fake trailers that appeared before the movies.  I think The VelociPastor has all the makings for a great fake trailer.  It’s all about a mild-mannered pastor (Greg Cohan) who, while traveling in China, cuts his hand on a mystical dinosaur tooth and becomes a bloodthirsty raptor by night.  Along with a hooker/med (and law) student (Alyssa Kempinski), he hunts down and eats only the people who DESERVE to be eaten. 

This premise could’ve easily supported a three-minute trailer.  It might’ve even made for a decent seven-minute short.  Seventy minutes (which is barely feature length) is just way too much time to spend on the already flimsy set-up.  The filmmakers even take to adding inconsequential flashbacks and tossing in too many supporting characters to get the film up to seventy minutes.  (The introduction of the drug-dealing Ninjas late in the game feels especially tacked on.)

There one or two funny moments that revolve around the film’s nearly nonexistent budget.  That’s not quite enough to make it worthwhile though.  Still, as far as these things go, you can do a whole lot worse.  At least it moves at an agreeable pace and the performers are in on the joke.  Overall, The Velocipastor is proof that the fake Grindhouse genre deserves to be extinct.