CONNECTED - director: Benny Chan, starring: Louis Koo, Barbie Hsu, Nick Cheung

For decades there has been a back-and-forth exchange of creative influences between Hollywood and Hong Kong. John Woo was heavily influenced by Sam Peckinpah, and in turn Woo’s The Killer and Hardboiled helped rewrite the book on how action was presented in Hollywood films. For a long time, this relationship of Hong Kong influencing Hollywood and vice versa was limited primarily to loving homages and unabashed rip-offs, but seldom did it manifest in legitimate remakes. Perhaps the best known example of a remake is Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, which had been made earlier in Hong Kong as Infernal Affairs. The Departed and Infernal Affairs served as a great example of how Hollywood could take an exceptional film from Hong Kong, and do it justice. Now, Hong Kong has taken a not-so-exceptional film, the 2004 action thrill Cellular, and turned it into the much better Connected. (more…)

THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1 2 3 - director: Tony Scott; starring: Denzel Washington, John Travolta, John Turturro, Luis Guzman

The word “classic” is thrown around a bit too carelessly these day when it comes to films, making it some sort of magical adjective used to describe movies that by some arbitrary set of sensibilities have been deemed worthy of being classical. Unfortunately, not every film that is called a classic really is a classic, as some films, while being great are simply just that, great. For any film to truly be a classic, it needs to reach a level of excellence that all movies strive for, but few ever achieve. And then decades later, if the film in question still holds up—if the writing is still finely crafted, the acting still solid and capable, and the direction still effectively evokes the sort of emotional response it was intended to evoke—then and only then can it be considered as possibly being a classic. Understanding this is crucial to understanding why the original 1974 version of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is a classic. (more…)

THE DEVIL’S TOMB – director: Jason Connery; starring: Cuba Gooding Jr., Taryn Manning, Henry Rollins, Ron Perlman

There is something about Cuba Gooding Jr. that just gets on my last nerve. Maybe it’s the shameless way he prances around and hams it up in insipid comedies. Or maybe it’s the way he strikes that stoic, misty-eyed pose in ham-fisted melodramas. Whatever it is, there is something about Gooding that really bothers me, and with the exception of maybe two films, I’ve never seen him in anything where I liked his acting. But no matter how much I may not like his acting—and I really don’t like his acting—the one “positive” thing I can say about Gooding is that he puts something into every performance (crappy though it may be). At least that was the one thing I could say until I saw The Devil’s Tomb, in which Gooding appears to put so little effort into his “performance” that it seems more like he accidentally wandered on to a set of a movie after having awakened from a week-long coma. (more…)

TERMINATOR SALVATION director: McG; starring: Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Anton Yelchin

Back in 1984, James Cameron’s low budget sci-fi action film The Terminator seemed to be just about the coolest movie of its time. Borrowing heavily from two classic episodes of the television series The Outer Limits—“Soldier” and “Demon With a Glass Hand”— Terminator offered the mind-bending tale of a time-traveling killing machine (Arnold Schwarzenegger) sent from the future into the present to kill a woman whose son would lead a rebellion against the machines that overthrow mankind. Much like Ridley Scott’s 1979 film Alien, The Terminator kicked off a science fiction franchise that started out strong, hit its apex with the sequel (both Terminator 2 and Aliens were directed by Cameron), and then lost much of its energy—only with the Alien films, there were more sequels and spin-offs to measure the downward spiral. (more…)

STAR TREK – director: J. J. Abrams; starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Eric Bana, Leonard Nimoy, Simon Pegg, Zoe Saldana, John Cho, Anton Yelchin

My original review of the new Star Trek, director J. J. Abrams’ seemingly ill-advised attempt to relaunch a franchise that has become an integral part of world culture, consisted of only two words. Those words were “fuck” and “yeah.” Some people might question the validity of a review that simply said, “fuck yeah,” but that was the first coherent thought running through my head after the initial punch-you-in-the-face-to get-your-adrenaline-pumping opening sequence of Star Trek. Fuck yeah. (more…)

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE – director: Gavin Hood; starring: Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Danny Huston

There was a time in my life when I thought the Chuck Norris movie Missing in Action 2: The Beginning was a great film. Of course, that was back in 1985, when it first came out, and my cinematic tastes were far from fully developed. The reason I’m sharing this bit of information about myself is because I think it’s important to note that there was a time when I liked certain movies, simply because I didn’t know enough to realize that they kinda sucked. Which is why I feel confident in saying that there was a time when, in all likelihood, when I would have really liked X-Men Origins: Wolverine. But that time, for better or worse, has long since passed; meaning that years from now I will never have to look back and say, “Man, I can’t believe I actually thought Wolverine was good,” the same way I now look back at Missing in Action 2 and say, “What the fuck was I thinking?” That is, unless of course, I don’t look back years from now and suddenly see some sort of cinematic genius in X-Men Origins: Wolverine that now eludes me. It could happen; but honestly dear friends, I highly doubt it will. (more…)

SPECIAL – directors: Hal Haberman and Jeremy Passmore: starring: Michael Rapaport

George Romero’s 1977 film Martin remains one of the greatest vampire movies of all time. A brooding deconstruction of the genre and mythology of vampires, Martin raised the burning question of whether or not the title character was really a blood-thirsty monster, or just a very crazy young man. If in fact Martin (John Amplas) was a vampire, then the film stripped away all the magic and superstition surrounding the supernatural creatures, making them sad and mundane creatures that lead lives of lonely desperation. But if the antagonist in Romero’s film was not an 84 year old blood-sucker, then he was merely a disturbed kid who happened to be a serial killer. And while Romero himself has clearly stated his intention, the film is vague enough that it can be interpreted either way, which is what makes it genius. That same level of thought-provoking genre deconstruction can be found in co-writers and co-directors Hal Haberman and Jeremy Passmore’s Special. (more…)

NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN – director: Irvin Kershner; starring: Sean Connery, Klaus Maria Brandauer, Kim Basinger, Barbara Carrera, Bernie Casey

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Never Say Never Again, the 1983 James Bond film that marked the return of Sean Connery, but was not part of the actual Bond franchise that had started back in 1962 with Dr. No. That same year saw the release of Octopussy starring Roger Moore, which represented, at least at the time, the worst of the Albert Broccoli produced Bond films. Octopussy was so bad that when Never Say Never Again was released a few months later, it seemed brilliant. The best Bond movie ever. But twenty-six years later, released as a “special edition” DVD to coincide with the release of Quantum of Solace, and without the stench of Ocotpussy making it smell like a bed of roses, it seemed like a good time to revisit Never Say Never Again. (more…)

PUNISHER: WAR ZONE – director: Lexi Alexander; starring: Ray Stevenson, Dominic West, Colin Salmon

Really, when you stop and think about it, there really isn’t a character better suited for an easy transition from the comic book page to the movie screen than Marvel’s Punisher. Loaded down with enough fire power to stop an army, decked out in a black outfit emblazoned with a skull, and no super powers other than the ability to kill criminals, the Punisher is about as no-frills as comic book characters get. There’s no convincing a movie audience he can fly, or that he transforms into a giant green monster, or that he has enhanced strength from being bitten by a spider. But despite the simplicity of the character, the last two attempts at bringing the Punisher to life—an idiotic 1988 adaptation starring Dolph Lundgren and an even more abysmal 2004 version starring Thomas Jane—have ranked among the more craptacular comic book movies. And those two miserable failures are either enough to make you wonder why anyone would make another Punisher movie, or give you cynical hope that at least there’s nowhere to go but up. (more…)

WATCHMEN – director: Zack Snyder; starring: Jackie Earl Haley, Billy Crudup, Patrick Wilson, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Malin Ackerman, Matthew Goode

Sooner or later there was going to be a Watchmen movie. It was inevitable. Sure, a lot of people said it was unfilmable; but that wasn’t going to stop Hollywood. It was only a matter of time, and a matter of how bad the cinematic adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ classic twelve-issue comic book series was going to be. (more…)