Patriot Games‘ Patrick Bergin is Tiberon (get it?), a madman who clutches a pearl necklace, has Kick-Ass’ Yancy Butler draped on his arm, and channels John de Lancie. He’s collected these poor souls for reasons unbeknownst until the final five minutes; you can gather it’s for personal revenge. He forces them into his baby shark-infested […]
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The Heineken Kidnapping
Portraying Heineken, who passed away in 2002, is Rutger Hauer. As good as he was as the Hobo with a Shotgun, that flick is a throwaway goof, whereas this carries heft and gives him a better vehicle for the dramatic might he rarely gets to show — at least in American productions; this is a […]
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Dexter: The Sixth Season
As season six opens, he worries whether his dark traits will take root in his toddler, but the arc of these dozen hours is tracking down the so-called “Doomsday Killer” — actually, killers plural: two end-times zealots (Edward James Olmos and a clench-jawed Colin Hanks) who believe God wants them to bring about the end […]
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The Viral Factor
Best known on our shores as Kato to The Green Hornet — and on others, in the likes of Kung Fu Dunk — Jay Chou stars as Jon, the International Security Affairs agent in charge of preventing disaster. In the exciting, extended prologue fueled by plenty of firepower, he takes a bullet to the head. […]
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The Chapman Report
Based on a novel that itself was based on Alfred Kinsey’s landmark, controversial survey of human sexuality, The Chapman Report — now on MOD DVD from Warner Archive — dramatizes the data-collection efforts of Dr. Chapman (Andrew Duggan, It’s Alive) and his assistant, Paul Radford (Efrem Zimbalist, TV’s The FBI) in one particularly prosperous California […]
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Juan of the Dead
As played by Alexis Díaz de Villegas, Juan is a middle-aged, self-“employed” fisherman in Cuba whose layabout life gets some much-needed excitement when zombies dissidents invade their economically ravaged, crime-ridden village. Ironically, it motivates Juan and his otherwise lazy gang, as they start a dissident-extermination business whose motto is, “We kill your loved ones.” Armed […]
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Lisztomania
Almost a year after his death, Warner Archive brings one of his wildest — and that’s saying something — to a long-overdue American DVD release with 1975’s Lisztomania. Based loosely — in every sense of the word — on the life of Franz Liszt, it’s a musical comedy horror sex fantasy unlike any you’ve ever seen. […]
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Hell
In the bleak thriller, director/co-writer Tim Fehlbaum imagines that our world of 2016 has ceased to exist — at least as we know it. Solar storms have raised the temperature by 50? Fahrenheit — something Oklahomans currently can sympathize with — and with resources bare, society has collapsed. Sisters Marie (Hannah Herzsprung, The Reader) and […]
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The Liquidator
Rod Taylor (The Birds, Hotel) is Boysie Oakes, a mistaken wartime hero with a silly name, whom the Secret Service hires as an assassin. The joke is that not only does Oakes not want to become Agent L, but he doesn’t have the stomach to harm a fly. “No more romping around the mulberry bush: […]
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One in the Chamber
Gooding is Ray Carver, a fixer who “solves” disputes between mob families. He also narrates from the start, so you know on whose side the movie stands; however, his softly spoken platitudes like “The past is the devil. You can’t run from it. It’s always behind you” put me squarely on the opposite side. Meanwhile, […]