A female take on The Terminator, 1991’s Eve of Destruction casts the robot, named Eve VIII, in the spittin’ image of its creator, Dr. Eve Simmons (Renée Soutendijk, the Dutch actress known for early Paul Verhoeven films). Eve VIII also shares Dr. Eve’s thoughts and memories, which gets really interesting when it begins acting out […]
cinema
Posted inArts & Culture
Caesar and Otto’s Deadly Xmas
Caesar (Dave Campfield, also the writer/director/producer/editor) is an anal-retentive wannabe actor who lives with his slob of a half-brother, Otto (Paul Chomicki), a guy still bearing a torch for a girl from school. She sells used shaving cream — a line that sums up everything that is wrong about this movie. In order to impress […]
Posted inArts & Culture
We’re the Millers
Scruffy pot dealer David Clark (Jason Sudeikis, The Campaign) already is in the hole for $43,000 when being robbed worsens his situation. Desperate cash flows call for desperate measures, in the form of a sleazy businessman (Ed Helms, The Hangover Part III) offering to erase David’s debt and pay him 100 grand to smuggle “a smidge” […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Short Term 12
Although she has been acting since the age of 8, Brie Larson only started to become “a thing” in 2009, as the daughter of Toni Collette’s dissociative-identity housewife on the Showtime series United States of Tara. For all three seasons, the 20-something Larson stood out by playing sassy, brassy and smug. She was so good […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Dallas Buyers Club
With Dallas Buyers Club, director Jean-Marc Vallée (The Young Victoria) takes the cinematic liberty to tell Woodroof’s story, revisiting the 1980s during the early years of the AIDS epidemic, when rampant conservatism, Reagan’s War on Drugs and the Christian right dominated American culture. In what appears to be the role of his career, an overwhelmingly […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Samson & Delilah
Not much happens in the movie, at least initially, which I suppose is entirely the point. When he’s not huffing gasoline, teenage Samson (Rowan McNamara) ambles about his surroundings — empty fridge, dirty water, hard floors, merciless sun — and listens to music and screws around in a wheelchair. Meanwhile, his sorta-kinda girlfriend, Delilah (Marissa […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Grabbers
On an Irish island, the whales and villagers alike are being attacked by an alien creature that thrives on blood and water alone. Looked like Lisa Nolan (Ruth Bradley, Alarm, In Her Skin) picked the wrong two weeks to sub as an officer there. Her jaded partner, the functioning alcoholic O’Shea (Richard Coyle, Prince of Persia: […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Corruption
One of the first I added to my list was 1968’s Corruption, a mad, mod thriller starring Hammer horror icon — and later Star Wars‘ Grand Moff Tarkin — Peter Cushing. As luck would have it, Grindhouse Releasing has made my search nonexistent with a Blu-ray/DVD combo that marks its North American video debut. Another […]
Posted inArts & Culture
In the House
High school literature teacher Germain (Fabrice Luchini, Ozon’s Potiche) is fed up with the student body at large, but impressed with the quality of writing by 16-year-old Claude (Ernst Umhauer, The Monk). For an early assignment, the student turns in a rather voyeuristic, true story about visiting the home of his awkward classmate, Rapha (newcomer […]
Posted inMusic
Know your Django
Thanks to Quentin Tarantino, we all know the “D” is silent. But if his is the only Django you know … well, friend, you don’t know Django. For one thing, he’s not African-American, but Italian. He’s not a slave, but a Civil War vet. He’s now 47 years old and drags a coffin behind him […]