The Last Stand (2013)

I feel something this momentous needs an epic sounding introduction. Something Tolkien-esque. One that rhymes, is in iambic pentameter or narrated by Morgan Freeman or something. But were he still around, maybe Mako would be a better choice, since the momentous occasion I speak of can only be referring to the return of Arnold Schwarzenegger! It's been so long since Arnie has graced us with a movie that gave him top billing, and I for one missed him terribly.

He's one of my favorite action leads ever, and I personally don't want to live in a world where there are no new Arnold movies to look forward to. The years he was governor were just painful for me, but now the wait is over and a new day is upon us! A day filled with cheesy one-liners! Onward to a new dawn!

Obviously, the extent to which I was excited about "The Last Stand" can not be measured by normal human methods. And after finally, finally seeing it, I can say without hesitation that it was exactly what I expected it to be. It is both a vehicle specifically designed for Schwarzenegger's comeback and a really fun time on top of that. What's interesting is it also possess both the classic campiness of older Arnold films while maintaining a level of gritty realism that has become more commonplace in action movies today.

I don't know guys, he looks like he's having too much fun here. I'm not sure I can get on board...

It seems that was what they were going for in terms of reintroducing Arnold to movie goers after such a long hiatus. In the 11 years since the last "Arnold movie," the horribly disappointing and weak "Collateral Damage," action movies have seemingly gotten overall less cheesy and more dour, with shaky cams and serious heroes aplenty. And when a big movie does come along that does have fun like "The Expendables 2," it's decried as stupid even though that's the whole point. Clearly this is not a market that Arnold can easily fit into anymore.

But since when was it written that nobody can have fun in an action movie now? Why is that seemingly relegated to direct-to-video affairs with Nicolas Cage?  Nobody even spouts one-liners much anymore besides James Bond, and even he's dialed it down a significant amount lately. Hell, seriousness almost flat-out killed the Bond franchise with "Quantum of Solace." This is an endangered concept. So how can Arnold Schwarzenegger, the guy who made action heroes fun, compete with the stone-faced austerity of characters like Jason Bourne?

Well, the answer seems to be "very carefully." If there is one thing that "The Last Stand" balances well, it's the mix of fun and serious tone. If anything, perhaps it's a bit too serious for its own good. This has a tendency to slow down the pace, but at the same time when there are scenes of both a sports car flipping an SUV by driving backwards and using itself as a ramp and of Arnold shooting a frakking minigun from the back of a schoolbus while Johnny Knoxville cackles maniacally and feeds him ammo while wearing a medieval helmet, it's easy to see that at its core "The Last Stand" is not trying to fool you into taking all this too seriously.

Pictured above - Totally serious.

The story concerns Ray Owens (Schwarzenegger), a former LA cop who settles down in a quiet Arizona town on the Mexican border as sheriff. And no, never once does anyone ever acknowledge the fact that "Ray" has an indecipherably thick Austrian accent. This, as in every other Arnold movie ever, is never explained. But on the other hand it's all part of the charm of Arnold. I just love imagining that his real name is Raymünd Owenschlisser, and I come up with an elaborate backstory as to how he came to live in the States. In my version of things he was a former bouncer turned hot air balloonist who found a love of crime stopping when he busted up a diamond smuggling operation whilst ballooning over South Africa. I'm working on the screenplay.

When Cortez, the leader of a Mexican drug cartel gets sprung from jail in Las Vegas in a jailbreak that would make Danny Ocean proud, he speeds towards the border in a car that can roughly do 200 mph. The FBI is at a loss to find or stop him, as they seem to have been outsmarted and out-"impossibly convenient BS-d." Perhaps the bad guys have a psychic among their ranks, I don't know. In any case, the only person who can stop them is Ray and his staff of inexperienced small-town cops. And Johnny Knoxville playing a crazy person. That's clever casting right there.

Much of the first half of the movie is a slow build up to the carnage that is to come, as the bad guys are constructing a bridge right outside of the town spanning a gorge between the States and Mexico for Cortez to drive over. Slowly we see Ben and his men getting closer and closer to piecing together what's going on as it goes from Ben's nagging suspicions, to a farmer going missing, to a case of murder, and finally to an outright shootout with the bad guys as they finally realize what's going down. All this is going on while Cortez speeds towards the town, the FBI in hot but hopeless pursuit.

Honestly, if your last hope is Arnold Schwarzenegger, you could be in worse shape.

Director Jee-woon Kim keeps the action pumping and inventive during the last part of the movie, and unlike a lot of action directors, he also has the common decency to keep it framed nicely so that we can actually see what's happening. The slow buildup is also used effectively, injected with just enough episodes of brief, brutal violence to keep us going and on our toes while we wait for Cortez to finally make it to the town.

This is also where most of the seriousness comes in, as Arnold not only plays it calm and relaxed when going around town, but also dour and mournful when the deaths of people he knows comes up. Often in Arnold movies we see him swearing cold-eyed vengeance on those who killed his friends, but here it's not played quite as hammy. The difference is that previously, he's usually more mad than anything else. But now, since we're taking our action movies more seriously today, he has to be more mournful instead. And while this isn't a deal breaker, in fact Arnold plays it surprisingly well, it does tend to mellow some of the more fun aspects which come later.

Take for example the line Arnold has in "The Running Man" after Yaphet Kotto dies. He tells Richard Dawson that he's going to "Ram [my fist] into your stomach and brake your goddamn spine." That's pretty badass and fun. In "The Last Stand," as he's getting ready to do battle with the villains, he tells one of his remaining cops that there is no way that she is as scared as he is at that moment, because "I've seen enough bloodshed to know what's coming." That's no doubt a badass line, but it's not very fun, and it tends to humanize Arnold as opposed to making him larger than life like he was before. That speaks to the differences I was talking about earlier. It's still awesome, but we can't have too much fun with it nowadays, apparently.

Easy with those cars, boys. You can drive through a cornfield. Just don't crack any one-liners. That's too much fun.

After the humanizing lead in, the back half of "The Last Stand" really fires up to fulfill the promise of Arnold's return to the world of action movies. When the bullets start to fly and the eponymous defiance begins it's hard to deny that not only does Arnold still have it, but there are more than a just a few big action movies to get out of him. This isn't a swan song, this is a new beginning for him. Yeah, he's older but you don't need to be young or even in very good shape to shoot a gun. That last part is important because it's clear that under that uniform, he's packing some gut. But hey, he can still one-hand a .44 like it's a pop-gun with the best of them.

Just keep his shirt on and he'll be fine.

This was also a fun cast to watch. You all know I loved Arnold in it, but Eduardo Noriega, who I remember from "The Devil's Backbone," an awesome movie by Guillermo del Toro, also made a fun and sleazy villain. Luis Guzmán and Johnny Knoxville. two people I'm not a big fan of, also deserve a lot of credit for providing a master's class on how to be a comedic relief character without being annoying, a talent utterly lost on most actors. That right there is worth the price of admission for the shear relief. Okay, maybe Knoxville got a little over the top with it, but the payoff was actually pretty funny.

The only two people I didn't really like were Forest Whitaker and Peter Stormare. I didn't like Forest much because he didn't do a whole lot except wheeze into a phone and fail at doing things. And Peter Stormare I really don't like in anything because he's Peter Stormare and I cannot tolerate his voice. It's seriously distracting because I never have any idea what kind of accent he's supposed to have. It's always this weird, nasally Italian/Russian/Swedish/German sounding dialect that just drives me up the wall. Even when he has a vaguely Texan accent like in this movie I can still hear it. Although his Texas accent is far more tolerable than his normal speaking voice.

And I enjoyed seeing him getting shot in the face.

Is "The Last Stand" art? No, it's not. But is that really what you were expecting it to be? Apparently so since this movie is bombing hard. And that's a damn shame that I don't understand. Are you all so jaded that when an action movie icon that became famous for cheese and gratuitous slaughter, which we LOVED him for, comes back after a long time gone and gives us a movie which is right in line with the things we loved about his old stuff, we roll our eyes and scoff? What's wrong with everyone? What more do you want? You know you love Arnold movies, as everyone with red blood pumping in their veins should. Why not this one?

Because I tell you what - If you see this movie and think that it's a weak entry in Arnold's filmography, watch "The Sixth Day." Watch "Collateral Damage." Watch "Jingle All The Way." Watch "Junior." Watch "Batman & Robin," if you have a death wish. Watch any of those. Then watch "The Last Stand," where Arnold tackles a guy off a roof while shooting him in the head, and then lands on him to cushion his fall.

And then look me in the eye and tell me that he's not starting his return off on a high note.

THE BOTTOM LINE - I really liked "The Last Stand." While it may not have had the shear amount of action per frame that I was hoping for, the mounting tension made for a more suspenseful film as opposed to a more brainless one, which is an acceptable tradeoff. This is a great return for Schwarzenegger, and I can't wait to see what else he has in store, particularly later this year with "The Tomb." It's going to be sweet. Welcome back, Arnie. I missed you so much, bro.

Gangster Squad (2013)

I've never been a huge mark for gangster movies. Their plots tend to be a bit overly complicated for me, what with the phone book of names they require us to know, almost all of them ending in "o" or "ni," and the connections between all of them, which when charted out with lines connecting all the dots resembles something akin to a Spirograph drawing. Oddly I find the same stuff in "Lord of The Rings" easy to follow. For some reason I know that it's Gimli, son of Gloin, son of Groin, descendant of Durin, but for some reason I could not tell you why Tony Soprano wants "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero dead. I have no explanation for this.

Movies like "LA Confidential" and "The Departed" just made my head hurt trying to keep up with the plot, to the point I couldn't enjoy them. I guess I'm just a simple man when it comes to gangster movies. Stuff like "Dick Tracy" or "Scarface." Cops are good, gangsters are bad. They shoot at each other. There you go. I'm all for shades of grey and crooked cops and men on the inside and informants and whatnot, but not at the expense of knowing what's going on. I even found "The Godfather" to be slightly frustrating, as good as it was. But that's just me. I don't like olives in my martinis, and I don't like convolution in my mobster plots.

But it seems an accepted fact now that gangster movies need that ridiculous web of connections and plots within plots within schemes within rats in order to even get made. It's just something those movies are supposed to have, but I've always found that to really be annoying because when it's all said and done, the only thing we want is to see the big shoot out at the end, because that's how they all always end. That is the part everyone is there to see in the first place. To have the road to that shoot out be so twisting and turning and doubling back on itself seems pointless, plodding and bordering on pretentious.

*sigh* It's just not exciting unless I've seen 3 hours of impossible-to-follow lead-in...

"Gangster Squad" doesn't have any of that. It was fast paced with a clear and easily digestible plot, and I found it to be something of a breath of fresh air. It was streamlined to the point where there wasn't anything left of the usual annoyances I have with the genre. What's left my not be anything that someone coming into it expecting a film like "LA Confidential" would want, but that's not to say it's bad. In fact, as "dumbed down" as that person may see "Gangster Squad," I greatly preferred it to something more "cerebral," and the reason for that is because it's free of that previously mentioned pretension.

I suppose it's for that same reason that "Gangster Squad" has been thrown under the bus in terms of critical reaction. Not that any of that really matters in the long run, but the 33% that Rotten Tomatoes has this film at is nowhere near the rating it deserves. I guess it's quite telling how deeply those elements of obfuscation have been engrained into the mob movie when a fun, well acted, action packed entry is shunned simply because it lacked those elements. It's a shame.

Listen up, you critics who gave this movie crap for not being "LA Confidential." It's not "LA Confidential." They never meant it to be. Accept this and move on. Stop crying into your notepad filled to the brim with scribbles bemoaning how this movie DARED to be a fun time, stick the pencil in your eye and leave the rest of us who got the point of this movie in peace. Just go pleasure yourself over "Road to Perdition" again or something.

What? Walking away from an explosion? Zero stars.

"Gangster Squad" plays out like a slightly more serious remake of "The Untouchables." Calling it "more serious" may be something of a misnomer, since there is certainly a good amount of humor to be found within, but anyone who saw "The Untouchables" remembers how comic-booky it got. "Gangster Squad" has a similar premise, what with a seasoned cop forming an elite team to take down a powerful mob boss, but this time it's in LA instead of Chicago. And we have better actors than Kevin Costner.

While I wasn't blown away by Josh Brolin's Sgt. O'Mara, the main character, I suppose he did a passable job of squinting and looking like a jaw had grown to gigantic proportions and sprouted legs. I'm not going to complain about his performance. He did what he was supposed to do. He was a hard-ass cop who didn't play by the rules, but damn it, he got the job done! I'm surprised they didn't give him a .44 magnum.

His jawline is actually a detective. It hides its badge under O'Mara's tongue.

I found Ryan Gosling to be more entertaining to watch, even though I'm still not 100% on board with him as an actor. We'll call it 70%. He has been climbing the ladder, but he still reminds me way too much of Casey Affleck, who's rocking a 25%. At least Gosling has the ability to not mumble. He's the reluctant member of the eponymous squad who's also playing the most dangerous game out of anyone, as he's having an affair with Grace (Emma Stone), who just happens to be the "companion" of the villain, Mickey Cohen.

Speaking of him, if there was one reason to see this film, it's Sean Penn as Mickey Cohen. He's another actor I'm usually not overly fond of, but I've got to say this was a really fun performance that he gave. If you were to channel De Niro's Al Capone and Pacino's "Big Boy" Caprice, you'd be in the right ballpark in terms of how fun he is to watch. Because he's a former boxing champion, Cohen is a bit more intimidating on a physical level than most mob boss villains are, and it's rather tense seeing him bare-knuckle throw down with Josh Brolin at the end, because there's a really strong possibility that Brolin is going to get his ass handled to him in a fancy cocktail glass.

I'd like to see Gandolfini do this...

In addition to Sean Penn, two other reasons to see "Gangster Squad" are immediately brought to mind. The first is Robert Patrick as a six-shooter toting cowboy cop who seems like he wandered onto the set from another movie being filmed across the street, but they liked him so much they just rolled with it. He may be out of place, but he's still a badass and possesses the best facial hair of the film. It's glorious. Plus it's Robert Patrick. And that's awesome.

The other reason was Emma Stone. Well, Emma Stone and her legs. There are certain things that I just can't lie about. One of those things is the fact that when it comes to particular people, I am a disgusting pig. I can't lie. So here it is: Emma Stone seems to be on a mission to be the most offensively attractive person I've ever seen in my life, particularly when she's sporting the red hair. And that seductive, Becall-esque, cigarette soaked voice of hers that sounds straight out of a movie from the 40's...good lord. I have a list of body parts I would be willing to saw off myself (or anyone else for that matter) with an allen wrench if it meant that I could merely be in her presence. I don't care how creepy that sounds, I stand by it.

She's also a really good actress. There is that, too.

Seriously, that's not fair, Emma. You're killing me by being so gorgeous.

With all that said, the cast really can't do too much if the rest of what's going on around them isn't entertaining as well, but "Gangster Squad" manages to be exciting throughout, with a good amount of action beats to keep the tempo brisk and engaging, and enough surprisingly brutal violence to satiate the bloodlust of anyone watching for the carnage. And for the kind of movie this is, which is a big budget B-movie harkening back to something that Lee Marvin would be in, that doesn't seem out of place at all.

And what do you know? It's also pretty funny. Some might not like that. Of course when you have lines like "You know the drill, boys" before a guy gets killed via a drill to the face, followed by brains splattering on the wall, followed by Josh Brolin throwing hamburger meat on a grill, it should be obvious what kind of movie this is. And expectations should be adjusted properly. I'm just glad I had fun at a mobster movie for a change.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Gangster Squad" was a lot of fun. It's exciting, it's well acted, the action is brutal, and it doesn't take itself very seriously, which adds to the humor and overall enjoyment. This is not a movie made by a people desperately trying to get an Oscar like most modern gangster films. This is a movie that remembers that those movies used to be a really fun time. Which "Gangster Squad" was. Check it out.

The Running Man (1987)

At the time of this entry, there are only two days remaining. Two days until the triumphant return of one of the greatest Action Movie Gods of all time. He is the giant who cannot be hit by bullets. He is the man who can make something explode just by pointing something else at it. He is the man who can look badass in both a loincloth and a spandex bodysuit. He's the King of The One Liner. He's also one of my favorite actors. I can be speaking of none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger. And this week, he returns.

I can't accurately describe my excitement for "The Last Stand." I'm so excited, in fact, that I couldn't help myself and needed to pre-game before seeing it. I decided to pop in one of the less popular Arnold vehicles, "The Running Man."

Right off the bat, I can see two reasons why "The Running Man" is usually not one of the films mentioned often in conversations about Arnold movies, unless the people discussing are big fans. The first is that frankly it's not one of his better movies. That's not to say it's bad, but it's a little too tame on the violence and a little too cheesy for its own good to hold up next to some other classic Schwarzenegger films. Which brings us to the second reason: 1987 saw the release of two Arnold movies. "The Running Man" was one. The other movie was "Predator."

Yeah, "Predator" wins.

How in the world any movie is supposed to hold up next to what is one of the best action films of all time I have no idea. It seems unnecessarily cruel to compare the two, since the source material at a base level is better in one over the other, but especially so since "Predator" director John McTiernan went on to do "Die Hard," and "The Running Man" director Paul Michael Glaser went on to do "Kazaam." Did "The Running Man" ever have much of a shot at being the more memorable film?

"The Running Man" is set in what is now considered a pretty cliched setting: In the not-too-distant future, television and The Media will be the most powerful thing on the planet, and there will be a distopian landscape where human life is held with the same amount of reverence as used toilet paper. In this future, the most successful and popular show is "The Running Man," where criminals (as determined by the corrupt government) fight to the death in embarrassing bodysuits against gladiators in even more embarrassing outfits known as "stalkers" in order to win their freedom. Of course, it's all a hoax and even if you win, they kill you in secret.

Hey, it may be cliched now, but I'm sure back in 1987 it was a bit less plausible and frighteningly less close to home.

Bee tee dubs, he's the author of the book it's based on. #themoreyouknow

Schwarzenegger plays Ben Richards (yeah right), a former cop who gets thrown in the slammer after not killing a bunch of starving people, whom he's then framed for killing anyway. After breaking out of the most ineptly run prison in the world after only a year and a half, Ben ends up in the custody of the government after being a bit of a prick and trying to abscond to Hawaii with this random girl who he finds now living in his brother's apartment. They make it as far as the airport before she predictably betrays him to the authorities at the first possible opportunity.

Ben is then forced into participating in "The Running Man" by the guy who runs away with both the literal and proverbial show, the movie's villain Damon Killian, played by Richard Dawson. Dawson was on a lot of TV shows, most notably "Hogan's Heroes," but everyone remembers him as "That host of Family Feud that tried to make out with all the female contestants." Richard Dawson was awesome, and he was actually a very good actor as well. There's no contest when I say that out of everyone in "The Running Man," Dawson throws down the best performance as the slimy bizarro-version of himself as the host of the eponymous show. And to be honest once again, were it not for him I really wouldn't consider "The Running Man" to be watchable. Even with Arnold in it.

Arnold's bulge was up for a Golden Globe. It lost to David Bowie's. True story.

There's just too little payoff to be found, in my opinion. There are really only four big fights in the entire film that Arnold has, and none of them last very long or are satisfying in terms of the carnage we'd expect from the premise. The first fight between Ben and Subzero (played by not-Harold Sakata professional wrestler Professor Toru Tanaka) starts off reasonably promising, but it's over pretty quick as Arnold takes him down with a single maneuver. The next stalker, Buzzsaw, has the longest fight and goriest kill, but most of it consists of Buzzsaw dragging Ben around behind his motorcycle and the violence isn't shown. Not very thrilling. The walking Lite-Brite Dynamo just crashes his car with Ben never touching him. Lastly, the stalker with the best weapon, Fireball (played by NFL legend Jim Brown) doesn't seem to realize how easily he could kill him with a flamethrower and gets taken out like a punk with barely any fight at all.

There's also a decent fight between Jessie Ventura and Arnold, but it's not actually the character of Ben Richards. It's only a guy with Ben's face mapped over his own in post. Although we never do find out who they had just sitting around the place who just happened to be a competent but expendable fighter the exact size of Arnold Schwarzenegger. I don't know. It's an 80's action flick. I'm not going to lose sleep over something like that. But it still doesn't change the fact that for an R-rated action movie about futuristic gladiators staring Schwarzenegger, this is a pretty tame outing.

"And if you survive, the grand prize will be...having your story be repackaged as a teen fiction phenomenon which will serve as a better alternative to a lousy teen fiction phenomenon!"

Also, if you have Arnold promise the villain with the horribly cheesy but strangely badass line, "I'll live to see you eat that contract, but I hope you leave enough room for my fist because I'm going to ram it into your stomach and break your goddamn spine" and you don't have him follow through with that promise...reconsider how you are going about making your film. Seriously you guys, that one was a freebee.

This. I want to see Arnold do this.

Lastly, "The Running Man" is just a little too corny for its own good. Don't get me wrong, my favorite thing about Arnie is the one-liners, but here they just aren't up to par. There's a couple groan inducing ones including "What a hot head" after he roasts someone and "What a pain in the neck" after he garrotes someone else to death, but as you can probably already tell, they weren't very creative. Some also required some pretty forced lead-ins. Even the most memorable one-liner "Here is Subzero! Now plain zero!" is honestly just confusing to me. "Plain zero" implies simply nothing, while "Subzero" implies less than that. Is he saying that he's improved Subzero by killing him? Has he made him at least break even now?

Hell, the best one-liner in "The Running Man" came from Richard Dawson when, after Arnold says "I'll be back," he quips "Only in a re-run." Taking away my hatred for whenever they have Arnie recycle a line, when compared with any of the numerous phenomenal quotes from that same year's "Predator" it's not even close. That can't compete with stuff like "Stick around." That can't even compete with "Knock, knock." This movie wishes that it could have that same badassery, and it tries, but when you kill your main villain by firing him into a wall in a rocket-car and the line after is "Well that hit the spot," it's just sad.

What spot? Was the rocket-car's name "Spot?" What the hell are you talking about?

THE BOTTOM LINE - While "The Running Man" should be required watching for anyone who's a fan of Arnold, it's probably the weakest of his 80's films, if only because back then his peaks were so high. It's alright, but this is one of the weakest. The only ones worse are probably "Conan The Destroyer." Or "Red Sonja." Or "Twins." Okay, so maybe "The Running Man" ain't all that bad. At least see it for Richard Dawson being awesome.

House at The End of The Street (2012)

Why do I torture myself like this? I'm coming down off one of the freakiest movies I've seen in a long time, "House of The Devil," and I immediately go to this garbage? What the hell is wrong with me? I knew it was going to suck. It's a PG-13 horror movie. There's only been one of those that was ever any good. And no, it doesn't matter one damn bit if it is the UNRATED VERSION YOU COULDN'T SEE IN THEATERS that I'm watching. If what I saw was the version too intense for theaters I can only assume that when it was released, it was rated G.

"House at The End of The Street," or #HATES as the trailer wanted us to refer to it as and tweet about, is a film that, to be quite blunt, should have been smothered in its sleep. This is a thing that should not exist. This thing is a travesty and complete failure on every conceivable level, and there is an hour and forty minute window of my life that I spent watching it, and I will never get it back. This is the kind of movie that makes me want to donate to a charity somewhere so that I can say I've done something of value with my day.

#HATES is about a girl named Elissa (Jennifer Lawrence) who moves with her mother into a house in Rich Asshole County, USA. This house is right next door to the eponymous house where, four years prior, a husband and wife were murdered by their daughter, who subsequently ran away and presumably drowned. Now the son, Ryan (Max Thieriot) lives there by himself. And because it's populated by horrible people, the entire town hates him because he has the gall to have parents who have been murdered.

Seriously, what a dick.

Yeah, that's the first huge sticking point for #HATES. Every single person in this movie - EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM - is a raging douchebag of Brobdingnagian proportions. Not only are all of the neighbors the standard rich, white, stuck-up twats who would be the villain who got their rightly deserved comeuppance at the end of any random teen girl coming-of-age movie, but they go so far as to beat the ever-loving crap out him and try to burn his house down. And why do they do that? Well, because he showed up somewhere, of course. I mean, his parents got murdered. Clearly there is no place for him among polite society.

And what of Elissa? Well, she's a disrespectful, lying brat who calls her mom a whore right to her face and is too stupid to piece together that when a guy has a woman locked in a secret dungeon in his basement, maybe that would be a good indicator that you should leave and call the police. So that's nice. That's our protagonist.

If I may, can I say one thing about Jennifer Lawrence? Everyone needs to stop freaking out about her. She's not that good. Yeah, she's okay if blandness is your thing, but if there was one actress out there who gets FAR too much credit for what she does, it's her. She's like the female Sean Penn. Only instead of scowling and looking like she's eternally smelling something really bad like Sean Penn does, she's just eternally starring ahead and slightly off camera with jaw slightly slack. I never see any life in any of her performances. I don't get the hype.

She's just so bland...

The mom (Elisabeth Shue) is a nagging, drunk harpy who likes to politely invite guys that her daughter likes over for dinner, and then gets wasted and tells them to leave her daughter alone for no good reason other than he's "in college." Oh, and that the guy has murdered parents. If you have murdered parents you can't date her daughter.

So what this all boils down to is that even though we do find out that Ryan, the guy living in the #HATES, is indeed a psycho killer and has been abducting women and keeping them in his basement, he is still the most sympathetic, likable character in this movie. I am not even kidding right now.

Because here's the thing - all the hate that is channeled toward him by the town is unwarranted in every conceivable way. As they believe, it was his sister who killed his parents, and he wasn't there when it happened. There wasn't even a suspicion of "maybe he did it." No, it's case closed as far as everyone is concerned. The official, confirmed story is that the sister ran off and drowned in the dam, and her body was never found (although if the body was never found, how do they know she drowned in the dam?).

Now, as it turns out, he actually did kill his parents. In an exceedingly stupid and nonsensical "twist," Ryan's sister, Carrie Anne, died years prior when she accidentally fell off the swing set. For some reason that I can't fathom because it makes no sense, the parents decided to cover it up, buried her in the woods, and dressed Ryan up as Carrie Anne, beating him into pretending to be his sister. And then one night he snapped and killed his parents. Ever since then, he's been abducting young women, keeping them in his spooky basement dungeon and pretending that they're Carrie Anne until they die and he needs another one.

"Oh no. I am tied to a rickety old chair by very thin strips of cloth. I am trapped. There is no escape. I, a fully grown, adrenaline-soaked adult in a struggle for my life, couldn't possibly escape this death sentence. Woe is me."

So okay, he's a villain. But the problem is that nobody actually knows all that. For all everyone else knows he's actually a very polite, nice kid who hasn't harmed anyone. I'm not giving a pass on everyone else in this movie being a horrible person just because they happened to be right by shear luck. That's freaking stupid.

And despite all of that abduction and murder stuff, I still feel more sympathy towards Ryan than I do any of the rest of the townsfolk. Ryan may be a psycho killer but at least he's got an excuse. His parents used the guilt he feels over his sister's death and their fists to screw with his head until he could have been the lead in "Sleepaway Camp." I'm sorry, I'm going to feel more towards him than an entitled, rich, snot-nosed teenager whining about first-world problems like her mom giving her a curfew.

I have a suspicion this person has more problems than you.

But even if for some reason I were inclined to root for the villain, that doesn't work here because he's really bad at what he does. I just don't understand how he managed to keep what he's doing secret for so long when the girls he kidnaps keep escaping. Maybe if he kept the key on him instead of putting it right above the door where the girls can do the whole "slide paper under the door and knock the key down and pull it back under" thing. Although how in the hell they knew it was there when they never would have seen him put the key there since the door is closed at that point is a mystery to me. I guess they figured he was really stupid and lucked out.

"Aw, son of a - that's the third one this week! Man, I need to get better at locking doors."

The fact that everyone else here is also incredibly dumb doesn't help matters either. Like I mentioned earlier, Elissa's first reaction to seeing a woman gagged and tied up in a secret hidden dungeon this dude has down in his basement isn't to kick him in the nuts or beat him with a pipe or pepper spray him or call the police or anything that might help that poor girl, but to calmly go upstairs and get a drink of water. And as she justly deserves, he immediately knocks her dumb ass out and ties her up. You know what? At that point I'm willing to give it to him. Go for it, dude. Nobody here is bright enough to live.

I swear, if I have to suffer through one more of these crap horror films I might just snap. When I finally do, promise me you won't let me wear any dress that doesn't flatter my figure. And as far as wigs go, I've always liked how I look as a chestnut brown.

THE BOTTOM LINE - #HATES is a train wreck, and not the enjoyable kind. If there was a recent film to rival "The Apparition" in terms of how to screw up a horror film in every possible way, this is a strong contender. It's not scary at any conceivable point, the story is riddled with nonsensical ideas, the acting is one-note and boring, and there is not a single likable character at any point during it's entire run time. Well, except for the drunk chick at the party who hurled in the toilet. She contributed the most value thing in this film: vomit. And of course it being PG-13 means that we can't even have scawy bwood in our HORROR MOVIE. Because heaven forbid the kiddies get nightmares.

House of The Devil (2009)

Nothing quite like a good old Satan-worshiping cult movie to warm you on a cold winter evening, eh? Honestly, for as much as I like weird, twisted movies, the "satanic cult" genre is one that I've not really explored very much. I'm not sure why, as I don't have any natural aversion to it. It's just one of those things that I don't have much knowledge of. But hey, as long as it's good like "The Last Exorcism" or "Borderland" I'm down. Let's do this.

"House of The Devil" hits a lot of high notes. But it's a film that isn't going to just belt them out for you right off the bat. No, it's going to make you wait for it. And it's going to make you wait a long time. Whether or not this will negatively effect the total experience for you is a matter of personal taste. But even if, as a viewer, you can only tolerate so much slow burn there is still enough in "House of The Devil" to warrant a hardy, albeit heavily footnoted recommendation.

We follow college student Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) as she takes a job babysitting for the evening. Clearly there are good reasons for her not to take the job, considering the guy offering it gives her the creeps, it's out in the middle of nowhere, her friend driving her has a bad feeling about it, and the dude lied to her about what the job actually entails, but after extorting him for $400 she decides the money is enough to risk it. This winds up to be just as bad of an idea as it could possibly have been.

"I should have asked for $500."

To the surprise of nobody who noticed that the name of the movie is "House of The Devil," satanic culty stuff is afoot, and Samantha has been selected to be a sacrifice to coincide with the total lunar eclipse that functions as the film's ticking clock. And the horrors that await her are nearly indescribably intense and, for my money at least, horrendously scary. This is one frightening movie that director Ti West has unleashed on us, and when the horror is in full gear it's less of a movie and more of a waking nightmare.

When the rites are being preformed, and the cultists and...other things...are doing their...thing..."House of The Devil" may just rival "The Exorcist" in how utterly, bone-chillingly terrifying it is. At least for me. In fact the effects and visions that Samantha begin to see are quite reminiscent of the spooky white face in "The Exorcist" that appear to scare the crap out of you. But whereas "The Exorcist" spaced those flashes out so that you had almost forgotten about it by the time the next one came up, "House of The Devil" outright punishes you with it by cramming a movie's worth of jump scares into the last 15 minutes. It's a different way of going about it, but I thought it was just as effective.

Making "House of The Devil" even more intense were fantastic performances all around, not only by our lead, Jocelin Donahue, but also Tom Noonan, the original Tooth Fairy from "Manhunter," but also AJ Bowen, who gave a very creepy performance which surprised me after seeing him be so lackluster in "Rites of Spring." And for fans of the slasher genre, "The Howling" and "The Hills Have Eyes" legend Dee Wallace even has a cameo in the beginning in a role that means nothing, but it's cool to see her there.

Now, I mentioned "the last 15 minutes." This is an important thing to bring up, because it has to do with the one thing about "House of The Devil" which will make or break it: the pacing. This movie starts slow, building up a sense of unease as we have more and more time to consider how bad of an idea this job seems to be. For about the first 30 minutes that's really all that's going on. It's just Samantha playing phone tag with the guy offering the job, talking about it with her friend, driving with her friend while talking about it, and then talking to the guy about it when they get there.

THRILL AS SHE SITS ON THE LOVE SEAT!!!

Then something happens so shocking and so brutal that it really sets the whole movie spinning on its head. Or at least it does for a time. One would expect at that point for "House of The Devil" to go in a completely different direction, but then it crawls to a snail's pace again right afterwards. For the next 40 minutes, all we do is watch Samantha in the house. That's it.

She walks around the place. She listens to music. She dances around. She watches a little TV. She orders a pizza. She eats the pizza. The glacial rate at which we are watching this girl made me start to wonder if anything bad was actually going to happen to her. After a half hour of watching her putz around the house, I seriously started to wonder whether or not the cultists just kind of forgot about the whole thing, or maybe they got a flat tire on their way to the house and were stuck somewhere out on the road. True, there's still "Grandma" upstairs somewhere, but we haven't seen her once all night. In fact she's keeping pretty much to herself. Hell, if Samantha keeps quiet she might not even know she's there.

And not having "Grandma" know you're there is for the best. Trust me.

Then the last 15 minutes hit, and everything that was slow and methodical about the last hour and change you've spent watching this movie comes completely unhinged. "House of The Devil" gets insane. Utterly, unabashedly, horrifyingly insane. And it is really a thing to behold. It's one of the best endings to any movie I've seen in a very long time.

But that being said, I can't help but feel that there was just a little too much lead-in before we got there. Slow building tension is fine, in fact it's generally how I prefer my horror movies to be, but there does come a point where it can get a little over-indulgent with it. And "House of The Devil" certainly does reach that point in the second act. At least it had the good sense to actually have a fantastic payoff, unlike the "Paranormal Activity" series, a franchise I find boring to the point of being insulting. "House of The Devil" may have just as much if not more build-up as "Paranormal Activity" does, but when it gets to the end, GEEZ was it worth it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to decontaminate my underpants...

THE BOTTOM LINE - "House of The Devil" is a mixed bag, but the parts inside that bag that are good are absolutely delicious. If you are a fan of the slow-burn technique, this might just be the most terrifying thing you've ever seen. If not, well, you might be bored senseless for the first 80% of this movie. But trust me, stick with it. That last 20% will totally be worth it.

Outpost: Black Sun (2012)

Sometimes there's not much you're expecting from a film upon first glace. But can you really blame me? Come on, look at that cover to the left of this sentence. That's a Nazi-Zombie movie. You know your brain just rolled its eyes at it.

And I'm not going to lie, I did the exact same thing. The first of only two reasons I picked up "Outpost: Black Sun" was because the dude at the video rental place told me it was actually pretty solid, a statement I took with a grain of salt. The second reason was because I made it into the store with all of 3 minutes until they closed, and I was desperate for something.

One thing I don't get is the rising popularity of the Nazi-Zombie. If you keep tabs on movies coming out, particularly in the direct-to-video market, there are lot of these movies lately. Probably way more than you'd think. Is it all because of "Call of Duty" that we have this rash of these things? I know that's a popular part of those games, and Nazisplotation has been around for a long time, but why are Nazis suddenly an "in" thing now? It seems to coincide with the same "ironically awesome" status that Nazis now have that made Chuck Norris a legend after his time, but is that really enough to warrant the resurgence of an entire genre of movies?

Back to "Outpost: Black Sun." It's true that my expectations were low for this one, but I have to say that when all was said and done, this is actually a pretty decent flick. I'm not joking with you right now. I find it hard to believe myself, but not only is the acting shockingly good, the action tense and exciting, the makeup great and the story interesting, but it even goes so far as to look good too. 

"Baby, I know I look good..."

This is a direct to video movie with a budget of $3 million dollars, but it does not look like it at all. This movie looks like a theater released, big budget action film that in terms of looks could have held its own with pretty much any other film of the genre. This looks just as good as any random Paul W.S. Anderson outing. In fact it's a hell of a lot better looking since there's no obnoxious abuse of slow-motion. You know, after seeing "Outpost: Dark Sun" I'm fully of the opinion that writer/director Steve Barker should have been given the "Resident Evil" franchise. It would have been a hell of a lot better than the dreck we wound up with. Hell, this movie is already a better "Resident Evil" film than those and it didn't even try.

"Outpost: Dark Sun" is a sequel to the 2008 film, "Outpost," also by Steve Barker. Unfortunately I have not seen it, although I kind of want to now. I'm not sure what happens in the first film, but this one begins with an investigator named Lena, played by Catherine Steadman, who I started referring to as "Not-Maggie Gyllenhaal." She hunts down an old Nazi war criminal in a retirement home, and in a cheesy but still pretty effective scene, she finds a map which leads her to eastern Europe, where an old experiment by the Nazis is about to be unleashed on the world. The experiment, as you could probably tell, is zombies. Zombies that are Nazis.

 No, seriously. Are you sure you're not Maggie Gyllenhaal?

An aspect of "Outpost: Black Sun" that is worth mentioning was that it did a good job ratcheting up the tension, which helps keep the plot moving and suspense high. The zombies in this film only possess their indestructible nature in this magnetic field generated by a machine hidden in a top secret bunker. Once turned on, the field slowly grows bigger, and the range of the creatures grows larger and larger. This is highlighted rather brilliantly by continually cutting back to the army that is combating this Fourth Reich, as their front line gets pushed back more and more as the field expands.

Once the zombies reach far enough, the army has decided to nuke the whole area. So it's up to two task forces to take down the generator and stop the zombies. We only follow one of them, as the other team is only reported as "missing." And despite being made up of some standard stereotypes, the soldiers I felt were acting pretty realistically, and I grew to like all of them, even the Scottish jerk, Hall, played by Ali Craig. Actually, he turned out to be my favorite of all of them. He was brilliantly entertaining.

The one thing that really caught me off guard with this movie was just how serious it took itself. This could have been campy, but instead they played it off as dead serious, dark and grim. You can take that for whatever you feel that is worth, but I really liked that aspect of it, honestly. That along with how (again) shockingly good this movie looks is the thing that made it stand out for me. There's also some pretty intense moments to be found.

Guuuggghhhglarrghghahghagblargh *shudder*

As for any downsides, well suffice to say that while it is indeed different than what you might be expecting, it's still not very shocking in terms of where the story goes. There's no twists or anything. The plot goes down pretty much exactly as you'd expect it to. That's not to say it's bad, it's just not anything we haven't seen before.

If there was a single aspect of "Outpost: Black Sun" I found to be outright bad, it was this really obnoxious...I don't even know what to call her. She was like this mad-scientist/nurse/Dr. Mengele zombie with a hump who's sole job it appears is to walk around the bunker with a hypodermic needle while incontrollably cackling in this sing-song, babbling child's voice. I know it's supposed to be creepy, but I found her giggling to be unbearably annoying, and cheered mightily when she gets taken out, but not for the reasons I think the filmmakers intended. Thankfully she's only in the movie for like 15 minutes, but it's a long 15 minutes.

Another reason I loved Hall. He shoots her in the face. And then calls her a bitch. Hall is astute.

SPOILER ALERT BELOW IF YOU CARE

It must also be said that the ending, while admittedly somewhat surprising, really smacks of unsatisfying. It's not that I'm upset that one of the characters turns coat at the end, even though my favorite character gets taken out in the process, it's just that I'm still not sure why they did it. It really seemed out of nowhere for the sake of setting up a sequel. And while it's true that one is set to come out this year, "Outpost: Rise of the Spetsnaz," which I'm looking forward to, from the description available it doesn't sound like it will be following up on this story. That's pretty lame because it's wide open.

Also, as much as I liked the character of Lena, I'm just not buying the Rambo-esque promise of vengeance that she gives the traitor over the phone at the end. I have to side with the traitor when he says "Good luck with that" after she flat out tells him she's gunning for him. She's not exactly Charles Bronson. And now he knows to watch his back. And he's got Nazis on his side now. She weighs 110 lbs soaking wet and the only person I've seen her kill was a 97 year old man in a wheelchair. Yeah, she bashed a zombie's face in with a fire extinguisher, but he was pretty much down for the count at that point. I'm not even sure if she knows how to shoot a gun. At least accurately. When did the idea of letting a guy who's actually a killer know she's coming seem like a good idea?

END SPOILERS

"In 2012 a crack commando unit was sent to an underground Nazi bunker by their superiors to stop a war they didn't start. These men promptly blew up the bunker and escaped to the Eastern European countryside. Today, still wanted by the Reich, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a Nazi problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find enough Phoenix Downs to bring them back from the dead, maybe you can hire...these guys. They haven't thought of a catchy monicker yet."

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Outpost: Black Sun" was a nice surprise. Despite the ludicrous premise, the plot getting a little too complex for its own good at the end, and ripping off the climax of "Raiders of The Lost Ark" at one point, it's one of the better direct-to-video action films I've seen in a while, and it's a pretty effectively entertaining time all around. I look forward to the sequels. Now I just have to get my hands on the first one.

Diamonds Are Forever (1971)

Welcome to the final installment of my "Bond - Sean Connery, Part II" Trilogy. We're looking at the final three Eon films that starred Sean Connery as Agent 007 in an official capacity. I didn't care much for "Thunderball" at all, while "You Only Live Twice" I found to be an admittedly sillier but far more entertaining venture. Now let's check out Connery's final certified outing as the world's most famous secret agent in "Diamonds Are Forever."

But before we go any further, one thing must be addressed. And this is, to the dread of some, the acknowledgment of the existence of one Mr. George Lazenby.

1971's "Diamonds Are Forever" was not the next Bond film after 1967's "You Only Live Twice." You notice the 5 year gap in between? In 1969 there was another movie and another Bond, with Australian model George Lazenby starring in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." Both Lazenby and the movie met with mixed reactions, and didn't do as well as they wanted. So, by paying Connery an unheard of salary, some $1.2 million dollars (in 1971 money), they got the original article back for one more go around.

I'll get to "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" sometime later, but suffice to say that the only thing you really need to know about what happens in it (since you can extrapolate they are related based on the intro) is that Bond really, really, really wants Blofeld dead. I mean, you could have assumed that based on the crap Blofeld put him through earlier, but yeah, if you watched "OHMSS" you know that saying "This time it's personal" really doesn't do the situation enough justice.

Well, that's cheerful.

And the beginning of the movie pretty much settles that. The opening scene has Bond strong-arming people all over the world looking for Blofeld, and he's not above choking a women with her own bikini-top to find out where he is. At least we know he can still be a pig even when he's raging. The whole thing is played up to keep his face hidden so that his reveal is all the more dramatic, and I suppose if you had been a big Connery fan and hated Lazenby it would have been quite effective, especially if they had kept it going just a little longer. But I must wonder if anyone back then didn't know Connery was back when every single poster always started with "Sean Connery IS James Bond in..." Oh well. It's just fan-service. Nothing wrong with that.

Well, Bond does in fact find Blofeld in the process of creating a double using the powers of both mud and science. Not really sure how giving a guy a spa treatment for a few days is supposed to change his face, but then again, I'm not a megalomaniacal evil genius. And he does kill both the double and the real Blofeld.

OR DOES HE?!?!

Ahem. No. You find out later that was merely another double. There's a lot of Blofelds running around in this movie. And hey, one of them is actually the real one. And no, he isn't played by either Donald Pleasence or Telly Salavas. This time it's Charles Gray, who is pretty good, but he isn't as slimy as Pleasence was, and it's annoying that the character keeps changing actors. I guess consistency isn't a priority in Bond movies. Except for Desmond Llewelyn (17 movies), Bernard Lee (11 movies) and Lois Maxwell (14 movies). What, was Bond's arch nemesis just not an important enough character or something? We had to save the consistency for the secretary who's in one scene every movie in which she's the one person on the planet who is hornier than James?

And why doesn't he ever go after Moneypenny? Dude would bang a toaster if he thought the damage wouldn't go beyond 1st degree burns...

The plot of "Diamonds Are Forever" is shockingly about diamonds. Specifically it's about diamond smuggling, which turns into a plot to blow up nuclear weapons unless they get a lot of money. I know, SPECTRE's plots are ever changing. At the outset, though, Bond is trying to get to the bottom of a South African diamond smuggling operation by taking on the identity of a professional smuggler. He does this a bit before winding up in Las Vegas, where Blofeld is discovered to be behind the whole thing.

I said before that Charles Gray makes a passable Blofeld, and it's true that he does. He has a bit more of a sense of humor than earlier, which also goes along with the lighter overall tone of the film. "Diamonds Are Forever" is the closest the Connery series ever got to the zaniness of the Roger Moore era (*shudder*) but it still keeps it mostly within the realms of not being annoying or overly weird.

I said "mostly."

Yeah, the very special assassins Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd. Hoo boy. These two guys. I'm not quite sure what to say about them. They're either one of the best or worst things about "Diamonds Are Forever," I can't tell for sure, but I'm leaning towards the later theory. I guess it depends on who you ask. On one hand, they're pretty creepy with how utterly soulless and blasé they are about the many, many people they kill throughout the movie. On the other hand, I'm not quite sure what they were going for with these guys.

Mr. Kidd, played by jazz bassist Putter Smith is the more subdued one, and of the two acts most like an actual human being. A cold blooded killer, but still human. It's Mr. Wint, played by Bruce Glover (father of Crispin) who comes off more as a psychopathic murder-bot from Outer Space loaded up with Quaaludes and the personality quirks of Peter Lorre doing Bronson Pinchot. All while being played by Crispin Glover's dad. Who acts just like Crispin Glover. A strange character is Mr. Wint.

I think it's possible to also get a little riled up at the fact that they're obviously gay. And having the only gay characters in the series be psychopathic killers could easily be looked at as kind of a jerk thing to do. So one could be offended by all that if they were really sensitive, but at the same time it's never implied that they are evil because of "The Gay," so that's a point in it's favor. They're just sick, twisted psychos with a penchant for debauchery. Being gay doesn't factor into it. It's probably not something to get worked up over, but it's still an odd character trait to have because it really doesn't add anything.

Besides this very dignified moment. *facepalm*

Aside from very strange hitmen, "Diamonds Are Forever" includes two lady henchmen, Bambi and Thumper, who wind up being basically useless despite all their overly elaborate and unnecessary flipping and tumbling. Or maybe it's because of it. But there's also a really good car chase through the Vegas strip, a reasonably passable final climax on an oil-rig, and a decent confrontation between Bond and Blofeld (for reals this time).

All of this is done while keeping the wackiness to a somewhat reasonable minimum.

I said "somewhat."

And I must admit to there being a line or two that did get a good chuckle out of me. It's nothing close to the dry wit of "Goldfinger," but when given a decent one-liner, Connery is still the man. Then again, I did laugh at Bond saying "Sorry, old boy" to a rat. I have no explanation for why I do what I do.

It's worth mentioning that Bruce Cabot makes an appearance as one of Blofeld's villains. He famously played Jack Driscoll in my favorite movie of all time, the original "King Kong." Also, Jimmy Dean (yes, that one) plays a Howard Hughes-style recluse. Who is also a cowboy. That's awesome. 

"I'm just amazed there's been no mention of sausages yet."

"Your mother wash mentioning them lasht night, Dean!"

But finally, and this must be addressed one last time, because it just blows my mind every time it happens, but Connery's Bond is absolutely insane with the epic, disgusting pig lengths he will go to in order to get laid. I thought it was bad in "Thunderball" where he grabbed that poor woman in the spa, shoved his tongue down her throat, and then proceeded to follow her into the next room as she tried her hardest to set the world land-speed record for stripping. I thought I'd seen everything, but in "Diamonds Are Forever" Bond makes history with the first recorded attempt of The Naked Man Maneuver. AND IT WORKS.

"Two out of every three times, man."

You know what? At this point, I ain't even mad. Props, James. The Naked Man takes guts to pull off. You do lose points because of the fact she's a total whore, though. And you pulled it off with probably the weakest of the Bond girls you had to choose from throughout your career. But hey, Barney Stinson would be proud.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Diamonds Are Forever," much like its predecessor, is a fun romp that's sprinkled with a fair amount of camp. Fortunately it's not enough to distract from the movie as much as the Roger Moore films did. Bond hasn't gone full-blown comedy. Not yet. In terms of quality it's about middle of the road for the Connery series. And it does get props for having a somewhat decent ending for freaking once.

THE END OF THE

"BOND - SEAN CONNERY, PART II" TRILOGY

JAMES BOND

WILL RETURN IN

"ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE"