Shaolin Soccer

I bought the VCD of it in anticipation that the US theatrical release would become a runaway success and I could say "Oh, I've owned that movie forever." Brutally mutilated by the Weinsteins and dumped late summer, many have still never heard of it. Stephen Chow, China's biggest star, creates a universe where CGI, clever wordplay, and random absurdities fuse together to make the most awesome action comedy probably ever. It's impossible to walk out of this movie without a smile on your face. Go buy it and avoid the 80-minute Weinstein cut like its the Plague with Herpes.

The Hard Way

How in pluperfect hell is this movie not the enormous cult classic it should be?

James Woods is a hard boiled cop tracking the post-Zodiac "Party Crasher" serial murderer/albino psychopath.

A chase scene involving Woods dangling from the open door of a tow truck during a police chase is only the highlight of the first ten minutes.

In walks Michael J. Fox as a short, self-absorbed movie star fresh off a sequel. He wants to portray Woods in a movie about Woods.

I think you see where I'm going with this.

Woods and Fox team up. Buddy cop shenanigans occur.

A scene ends with Fox being thrown out of a window.

Woods beats up Lewis Black at a Chucky Cheese because Black and his jerk-off friends scream drunkenly about boners around his daughter-to-be, Christina Ricci.

Fox pretends to be a cop on the subway and ends up getting into a shootout. With a squeak toy.

LL Cool J, Luis Guzman, and Delroy Lindo populate the police station.

And of course, the coolest killer in MC Hammer pants, the Party Crasher. Who plays Battleship with himself.

This is the best film you've never seen.

Southland Tales

"The fourth dimension will collapse on itself... you stupid bitch."


"Southland Tales" was fucking great because I don't mind having Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's problems for three hours.

Motherfucking CAMPFIRE TALES

Dude, dude... Remember those scary story anthology books you read as a kid where they all ended with a creepy gory twist?

They made a fucking movie about them.

That's right... They're all here. The hook hand, the necklace that can't be taken off, the kids that are dead the whole time... Every scary story anthology twist is in full frontal display, all done with enough r-rated goofiness to keep a room full of burned-out ex-stripper alcoholics amused.

Rent this. Crack open a twelve pack and fill the bong. You shan't be disappointed.

Get On The Fuckin FREEWAY

There are times when you are watch a movie and wonder "Why have I never seen this before?" or "How has nobody told me about this?" or "This is fucking nuts". That is what happened to me when I sat down with my family to watch Matthew Bright's Freeway.

After her crack-whore, prostitute mother and pedophile crack-head step-dad are arrested for the things that describe them, illiterate high-schooler Vanessa Lutz (Reese Witherspoon) decides the time is right to skip town for Grandma's house before child services shows up. With her red basket in hand, Vanessa sets out on a modern day tweaker retelling of Little Red Riding Hood.

Soon after picking up a gun and some lovin from her boyfriend Chopper, Vanessa's car breaks down on the freeway. Luckily a kindly gentleman by the name of Bob Wolverton (Keifer Sutherland) stops to help her out with a ride. Bob is a psychologist for disturbed and abused children. He recognizes the pain in Vanessa and tries advanced theraputic questioning to ease her pain. But Vanessa notices Bob is a little too interested in her answers. The jig is up after Bob promises to hold off on sex with her body until after he's killed her. As it turns out, Bob is a serial-killer pedophile looking to eat up another downtrodden girl.

It's a good thing Chopper gave Vanessa a loaded gun. She shoots Bob 5 times, two in the head, and leaves him for dead on the side of the road. After wiping the blood off and getting a bite to eat she is arrested for attempted murder because it turns out Bob survived as a horribly scarred, robot-voiced monster who has to constantly wipe the spit away from his gaping mouth.

Vanessa is sent to juvie while the courts decide to try her as an adult. Vanessa soon becomes alpha dog in juvie after beating the shit out of a bitch trying to put the moves on her. Vanessa wasn't meant to be caged, so she fashions a shank and slashes up a guard for his keys. She breaks out and flees to Grandma's.

Since we all know the story of Riding Hood, imagine what is waiting for Vanessa at Grandma's house. It's scarier than you might think.

It in the end Freeway is a feel good coming of age story about a girl shedding her scary past with her parents for an even scarier one on the road. Did I mention this is one of the funniest movies I've ever seen?

The best review I can come up with for it, beside Siskel and Ebert's "Two Thumbs Up" on the cover, is from my mother who said "I have never seen a movie like that ever."

This is the movie Reese Witherspoon made right before Fear. Fear is fucked up. Freeway is fuckeder upper.

Fuck passengers one through fifty-six!

The widescreen version of this stupid movie really justifies everything, y'know.

Enough said.

Prepare to be BLOWN AWAY

The Summer of 1994 had already exploded. Dennis Hopper was exploding everything in his path, including Jeff Daniels, in the movie that made you believe a bus could fly, Speed.

But a month after Keanu knocked Hopper's block off came the Irish 4th of July movie to end them all. A movie about identity, loyalty, and family. A movie whose tagline brazenly stated:

Boom Baby. Sweet Dreams.

And...

5...4...3...2...1....Times Up

It is the Boston Bomb Squad and IRA epic Blown Away.

The first scene introduces incarcerated Ryan Gaerity (Tommy Lee Jones) stabbing his cellmate in the face, throwing up a condom filled with explosives, building a bomb in his dirty toilet, exploding through the prison walls and escaping into a stromy Irish night. That is how Gaerity rolls.

The second scene pumps up the U2 (the movie is filled with it. Gaerity even buys a U2 cassette at a flea market) as Jimmy Dove (Jeff Bridges) motorcycles like a badass through Boston to his girlfriend's daughter's birthday party. He get's halfway through a game of pin the tail on the donkey when he gets a page from his bomb squad unit. Jimmy is pissed because of course it was his day off, but such is the life of go-to bomb squader James Dove.

Needless to say, Jimmy saves the day, and the reporters are all over him for the details. And who happens to be getting drunk as fuck in a local bar as the report airs? Why it's our old friend Stabby Exploderson, Ryan Gaerity. He watches the report with humor and intensity. He knows this man, but not as James Dove.

Bottom line, James Dove is actually Liam McGivney, former bomb builder for the IRA who was educated in exploding things by Gaerity. They built a bomb a long time ago that Liam wanted to use for good and Gaerity for bad. A whole bunch of innocent people exploded and Gaerity was arrested while Liam escaped to the US and assumed a new identity. So basically Gaerity is pissed and proceeds to explode everyone James Dove holds dear, no matter how improbable the bomb.

I don't know how he did it, but Tommy Lee Jones is zanier in this than his follow up as Harvey "Two-Face" Dent in Batman Forever. He must have been a fatigued from Blown Away. With an Irish brogue that has to be heard to be believed, Tommy plays around with crabs on the beach, sends cryptic and slightly gay videos dressed as the Statue of Liberty to the Bomb Squaders, and cranks up the U2 as he builds mega bombs.

The whole movie leads up to a climactic fist fight on the 4th of July between Tommy and Jeff inside Tommy's Rube Goldberg mega bomb he built in an abandoned ocean liner rusting on the bay. But even after Forest Whitaker jumps through fire to save Jeff from Tommy's final explosion, Jeff has to race to his girlfriend/fiance's orchestral performance of the 1812 Overture so that her daughter and her don't explode while driving back home.

Needless to say Jeff saves the day and walks home bloody with his girlfriend, shrapnel sticking out of his leg.

This movie contains the penultimate "OH MY GOD, DON'T TOUCH THAT, IT IS GOING TO EXPLODE" scene, but don't worry, it just ends with a dead dog.

Jesus, I haven't even told you the half the movie and I'm exhausted.