Quiet Cool

  Any good fan of 80's-90's action cinema can appreciate James Remar. He's your go-to bad guy, whether he's the main bad, or just a henchman, he's good for it man. He's always a cool guy to see in movies. I can't really remember the last time I saw him play a good guy, if ever- that was until Quiet Cool. This movie is at odds with itself in the most amazing ways possible. It's a cliche 80's action movie that actually ditches the cliches while simultaneously embracing them. It feels well written and cheesy at the same time. There's something fun and unique to be had here, I hope you all get around to watching it.

Without Warning

  Now here's a fun movie. It's equal parts perfectly cheesy and genuinely creepy, a standing testament that the two can go hand in hand and not undermine each other. Of course, Without Warning's cheesiness is more a product of it's budget and the era it was made in, but that's also part of it's appeal. The filmmakers knew how to get you. They may not have had the best special effects or the best cast (which surprisingly includes Jack Palance and Martin Landau), but they knew how to make the best out of what they had. The end result was this delightful gem of a movie.

Dark Places

  I'm a sucker for mysteries. I love me a good mystery. A good mystery keeps you engrossed and guessing right up til the end. It has twists and turns and all that good stuff. Dark Places is a good mystery. The whole cast turns in great performances, and ho'boy what a cast it is. Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, Chloe Grace Moretz and Christina Hendricks. To say nothing of familiar faces in supporting roles. If the caliber of those involved hasn't sold you, I'm not sure anything I can say will, but I'll do my best because Dark Places was time and money well spent.

Furious 7

  I feel the Fast & Furious movies are secretly the live action Hot Wheels movies we never knew we always wanted. Just had to get that out of the way. Seriously though, few movies as stupid as the original The Fast and The Furious have ever given way to such a wildly successful franchise. And few franchises have ever made us care about characters that while now seem human, used to be little more than glorified action figures. And all this from the same franchise that feels more like "Michael Bay's: Hot Wheels" than anything. But what once spawned from a bad Point Break rip-off/remake has being going strong as each subsequent entry (from Fast & Furious on) has been one-upping it's predecessor in terms of sheer well-crafted spectacle, creativity... and even heart.

Captain America

  Some movies are patriotic, and some are nostalgic, but Captain America is neither of those things. What it is, however... is vaguely embarrassing. Even the unreleased Fantastic Four movie by Roger Corman's company was better than this. However, above all else, Captain America is deceptive. The first 20 minutes of the movie aren't bad. They aren't great, but they're at least entertaining. It's a decent start to what we can only expect is going to be a fair action adventure movie with a most iconic Marvel Comics superhero. Oh how very, very wrong that is.

The Last House on the Left

   I'd known about this movie for a long while based on reputation alone. It's one of those 'extreme' movies. Well, I dunno what else besides just that made me want to watch it, maybe it was the passing of Wes Craven- (which also had me watching A Nightmare on Elm St. the same night I found out) or something else, I don't know, but I watched it. I think I'm a good deal desensitized to violence, but this movie got under my skin at times. That's saying a lot too.

BLOODY VENGEANCE

  In this day and age, if you do something yourself, you gotta promote it yourself. I'm most certainly not above that kind of thing. So lemme give you the scoop on my latest thing. I actually wrote a screenplay called Bloody Vengeance that I finished a year ago or so, but it was just sitting around- not being read, I won't sell it, it was just collecting dust. This whole time I've been writing a sequel to it, I've been wondering what to do with it. So my collaborator and I decided to brush off said dust and polish it up... and then publish it. So that's exactly what we did.

(A slice of the cover art drawn by yours truly.)

DragonBall Z: Battle of Gods

  So, I know this has been out for ages now but I refused to watch it until I had finished the show. Yes, late bloomer, wtf and all that. I only just legitimately finished Dragon Ball Z for the first time this week. I was a Toonami brat back in the day but as anyone would know, they'd repeat the hell out of just a few sagas and that was the extent of it. Not to mention I could never watch it at my own house, we didn't have that channel. I would always watch it at my friends' place. Late nights, little sleep, and lots and lots of Dragon Ball Z. Until I got a fair bit older that was my only exposure to the show, that and a couple of the Budokai games for the PS2.

Jurassic World

  In this age of prequels, sequels and reboots.... sometimes they get it right. I couldn't be more happy then that Jurassic World is one of those times. I was super excited about this one after the trailers, but tepid word of mouth from friends of mine put me off seeing it for a long-ass while. I really regret not seeing it sooner, and on a much bigger screen. I won't go through the useless exercise of ranking it among the other JP movies, because everyone's opinion of those vary like crazy. Some are fans ONLY of the original, some love the first two, some think they're all great. People have even been seriously divided on this one as well.

Alien Resurrection

  Of all the movies I love to bash, Alien Resurrection definitely has a permanent standing among them. It's a far cry (and then some) from the Gothic, Lovecraftian, scary, and often exciting proceedings of it's predecessors. It's a movie that most everyone generally accepts as bad, and it's the 'one to avoid'. 'Skip, if at all possible'. For ages, I would make no argument there. None at all. However, for some reason I decided to give it another go. I don't know why, it'd just been nagging at me. I like revisiting movies I dislike, and breaking them down into pieces to find out exactly why they don't work. Imagine my surprise when Alien Resurrection isn't at all the movie I remembered it to be. Well... most of it anyhow.

A Serbian Film

   Well, here we are. A Serbian Film is a movie I once swore to myself I'd never watch. A movie with a reputation so massive, that I just knew it would mess me up. It required 19 cuts just to get an NC-17 here in the USA and it was actually banned in Brazil. People have said this movie would leave you feeling sick to your stomach, you might puke, it's the most vile, degrading, disgusting, gross-out movie ever. The way people talked about this movie, I thought it would ass-fuck my soul and leave me for dead. Well, I hate to say it, but it's not that bad. It's squirm-worthy, but not much more.