Welcome back gang, and it is Super Bowl SUNDAY! I kept it nice and quick for all you cats on this holiest of days, and I luckily had a solid week that ended in a nice surprise. So sit back before the game or during the shitty half time show (seriously, another bullshit pop act?!) and let the good times roll.
Fright Night (January 25th, 2015)
Director: Tom Holland
Director: Tom Holland
Starring: William Ragsdale, Chris Sarandon, Amanda Bearse, and Roddy McDowall
Even when they aren't very good, 80s horror movies usually are very watchable and have a special place in my heart. From a simplistic earnestness and a giddy use of violence, the movies don't tend to be mean spirited. Fright Night is one of those movies, and it luckily is pretty good to boot. Having talked about the remake a few months back, the movie is pretty much similar plotwise. But the main thing to separate these two is tone. The remake is a bit more Looney Tunes, where this original is a bit more serious about the problems at hand. It is still a funny movie, but not aggressively so. One only has to look at how the vamps are portrayed in the movies. In the remake, Colin Farrell is a showman and very big. Here, Chris Sarandon is a low key, kind smug yuppie of a vampire. He acts as if all of these bullshit is below him and just wants to keep killing bitches, but this nerd insulted him. That and the movie holds back on the vampiric angle a bit longer than the remake. It has some problems that plagued many an 80s movie, some cheesy acting and stupid decision making. But nothing too insane as the kill the movie. It's a fun time and a nice spin on the vampire story, with a great performance by Sarandon.
Rating: 8/10
Olympus Has Fallen (January 26th, 2015)
Director: Antoine Fuqua
Starring: Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Rick Yune, and Morgan Freeman
Sometimes, we just need some glorious trash to keep us going. No pretense of importance or deeper reachings. Sometimes, a movie just wants us to sit back and enjoy Gerard Butler dishing out some serious cranium injuries. When a group of Korean terrorists attack the White House and hold the presidents hostage, John Mcl... er Gerard Butler has to fight off the terrorists one by one in the White House. A few things crossed my mind at first. One, this is an insanely obvious Die Hard ripoff. That's fine, it's been a good long time since a movie tried to be like Die Hard (the Die Hard sequels didn't even try). Secondly, this is weirdly prescient in a way. Obviously the Koreans didn't do anything even close to this level of attack, but we were recently attacked by them in a way. So, timing when watching a movie is everything, and I had great timing. Thirdly, Antoine Fuqua is known for making Training Day when this is usually the kind of movie he makes. Glorious trash. Mean spirited too, killing indiscriminately and in horrible ways. This is an ugly movie and really stupid. But it's so stupid, it feels like it knows exactly what it's doing without winking. The violence hits hard and is really kind of effective. It's a fantastic TNT movie, and sometimes that is just a ok.
Rating: 8/10
The Equalizer (January 27th, 2015)
Director: Antoine Fuqua
Starring: Denzel Washington, Chloe Moretz, David Harbour, and Martin Csokas
Another Fuqua joint! This time he returns with the much less ugly and stupid, but just as brutal actioneer/pulp revenge movie starring Denzel. Returning to a project helmed by the man who got him an Oscar brings out some really good work in Denzel. Never one to sleepwalk through a role, he still goes above and beyond here. In a move you can tell was all him, Denzel makes his character of John McCall a man with OCD. Not in quirky way. He is a man who is always precise and everything has to be in place. It's not an obnoxious tick where he drives people crazy. It doesn't even come in to play to make him nuts. It's just a little flavor to make him richer, and it works. These ticks work because it plays into his past as a CIA operative, a man who went through such a rigorous and routine driven life, it stays with him. When this man befriends a young prostitute (Moretz), he feels compelled to get justice for her when the men who run her put her in the hospital. And the best thing is that he does this immediately. It's not the whole movie. He does it and goes about his life, helping others in similar ways. But the meat of the movie springs forth from this action, when those mens bosses come looking for who did this. And when it finally comes back to McCall, he springs into action and starts to take apart the organization piece by piece. It's a much more well written and plotted movie than it needed to be. You coulda just thrown Denzel on screen and had him whoop some ass and we'd all be fine. So it's nice to see some sort of work went into it. What else stands out is how dark the movie gets without being unrelenting. Child prostitution and brutal violence, stark and cold make this unique among the old man action movies. It grounds the cliched action movie formula. While it does run a little too long, this is a fine enough film for action fans and Denzel fans.
Rating: 8/10
Crimson Tide (January 30th, 2015)
Director: Tony Scott
Starring: Denzel Washington, Gene Hackman, Viggo Mortensen, and James Gandolfini
There are two directors who have gotten career best performances out of Denzel and they are two varied, completely different types of directors. You got Spike Lee on one end, getting Malcolm X and He Got Game out of Denzel. Then you got Tony Scott, who got Man on Fire and Crimson Tide out of him. I've said before that Denzel is always putting serious effort into his roles, but these two guys unleashed something in him in those 4 movies. Something real came out of the collaboration. Like this movie for example, Denzel is playing a cerebral, almost anti war soldier. At the least, he is cautious and isn't too keen on using the nuclear warheads he is responsible for. Set in a slightly off of reality early 90s, a Russian civil war is breaking out and a Nationalist is threatening Nuclear war if any Russians are killed by outside forces. So America is sending out nuclear subs to Russia just in case. One of those subs is headed by Gene Hackman and his new number 2, Denzel. Hackman is an old school type badass, doing whatever the orders tell him too and busting ass when he has to. But Denzel is more of a thinker, and when a message comes in to launch a nuke, the sub goes to work. But what happens when a second message comes in but is cut off before the message can get to its point? Do you try to get the message, putting your sub at risk at being found? Or do you go through with the launch, having the orders you have with the risk that they are outdated? That's the dilemma at hand. And the movie actually takes it's time to have these debates and let them simmer. Aside from a duel between subs, this is not a movie filled with action. It's a tense movie, making you wait on the edge of your seats to find out what is gonna happen. And it even makes Hackman the villain, but an understandable villain and one who isn't a total bad guy. Hell, he isn't even a bad guy. Just a man who may be past his due point, and he recognizes that and it's refreshing. The movie is surprisingly smart from Tony Scott, and it's a nice reminded of what he was capable of with a good script. This is a good little 90s thriller with a morally grey outlook on things and it's a refreshing change of pace for a war movie.
Rating: 9/10
Top Movies
1. Crimson Tide
2. The Equalizer
3. Fright Night
4. Olympus Has Fallen
Top 5 Performances
1. Denzel Washington - Crimson Tide
2. Gene Hackman - Crimson Tide
3. Chris Sarandon - Fright Night
4. Denzel Washington - The Equalizer
5. Gerard Butler - Olympus Has Fallen
Top 5 Moments
1. Relieved of Duty - Crimson Tide
2. McCall Equalizes The Pimps - The Equalizer
3. The Club Scene - Fright Night
4. The Attack - Olympus Has Fallen
5. The Final Message - Crimson Tide
Even when they aren't very good, 80s horror movies usually are very watchable and have a special place in my heart. From a simplistic earnestness and a giddy use of violence, the movies don't tend to be mean spirited. Fright Night is one of those movies, and it luckily is pretty good to boot. Having talked about the remake a few months back, the movie is pretty much similar plotwise. But the main thing to separate these two is tone. The remake is a bit more Looney Tunes, where this original is a bit more serious about the problems at hand. It is still a funny movie, but not aggressively so. One only has to look at how the vamps are portrayed in the movies. In the remake, Colin Farrell is a showman and very big. Here, Chris Sarandon is a low key, kind smug yuppie of a vampire. He acts as if all of these bullshit is below him and just wants to keep killing bitches, but this nerd insulted him. That and the movie holds back on the vampiric angle a bit longer than the remake. It has some problems that plagued many an 80s movie, some cheesy acting and stupid decision making. But nothing too insane as the kill the movie. It's a fun time and a nice spin on the vampire story, with a great performance by Sarandon.
Olympus Has Fallen (January 26th, 2015)
Director: Antoine Fuqua
Starring: Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Rick Yune, and Morgan Freeman
Sometimes, we just need some glorious trash to keep us going. No pretense of importance or deeper reachings. Sometimes, a movie just wants us to sit back and enjoy Gerard Butler dishing out some serious cranium injuries. When a group of Korean terrorists attack the White House and hold the presidents hostage, John Mcl... er Gerard Butler has to fight off the terrorists one by one in the White House. A few things crossed my mind at first. One, this is an insanely obvious Die Hard ripoff. That's fine, it's been a good long time since a movie tried to be like Die Hard (the Die Hard sequels didn't even try). Secondly, this is weirdly prescient in a way. Obviously the Koreans didn't do anything even close to this level of attack, but we were recently attacked by them in a way. So, timing when watching a movie is everything, and I had great timing. Thirdly, Antoine Fuqua is known for making Training Day when this is usually the kind of movie he makes. Glorious trash. Mean spirited too, killing indiscriminately and in horrible ways. This is an ugly movie and really stupid. But it's so stupid, it feels like it knows exactly what it's doing without winking. The violence hits hard and is really kind of effective. It's a fantastic TNT movie, and sometimes that is just a ok.
The Equalizer (January 27th, 2015)
Director: Antoine Fuqua
Starring: Denzel Washington, Chloe Moretz, David Harbour, and Martin Csokas
Another Fuqua joint! This time he returns with the much less ugly and stupid, but just as brutal actioneer/pulp revenge movie starring Denzel. Returning to a project helmed by the man who got him an Oscar brings out some really good work in Denzel. Never one to sleepwalk through a role, he still goes above and beyond here. In a move you can tell was all him, Denzel makes his character of John McCall a man with OCD. Not in quirky way. He is a man who is always precise and everything has to be in place. It's not an obnoxious tick where he drives people crazy. It doesn't even come in to play to make him nuts. It's just a little flavor to make him richer, and it works. These ticks work because it plays into his past as a CIA operative, a man who went through such a rigorous and routine driven life, it stays with him. When this man befriends a young prostitute (Moretz), he feels compelled to get justice for her when the men who run her put her in the hospital. And the best thing is that he does this immediately. It's not the whole movie. He does it and goes about his life, helping others in similar ways. But the meat of the movie springs forth from this action, when those mens bosses come looking for who did this. And when it finally comes back to McCall, he springs into action and starts to take apart the organization piece by piece. It's a much more well written and plotted movie than it needed to be. You coulda just thrown Denzel on screen and had him whoop some ass and we'd all be fine. So it's nice to see some sort of work went into it. What else stands out is how dark the movie gets without being unrelenting. Child prostitution and brutal violence, stark and cold make this unique among the old man action movies. It grounds the cliched action movie formula. While it does run a little too long, this is a fine enough film for action fans and Denzel fans.
Crimson Tide (January 30th, 2015)
Director: Tony Scott
Starring: Denzel Washington, Gene Hackman, Viggo Mortensen, and James Gandolfini
There are two directors who have gotten career best performances out of Denzel and they are two varied, completely different types of directors. You got Spike Lee on one end, getting Malcolm X and He Got Game out of Denzel. Then you got Tony Scott, who got Man on Fire and Crimson Tide out of him. I've said before that Denzel is always putting serious effort into his roles, but these two guys unleashed something in him in those 4 movies. Something real came out of the collaboration. Like this movie for example, Denzel is playing a cerebral, almost anti war soldier. At the least, he is cautious and isn't too keen on using the nuclear warheads he is responsible for. Set in a slightly off of reality early 90s, a Russian civil war is breaking out and a Nationalist is threatening Nuclear war if any Russians are killed by outside forces. So America is sending out nuclear subs to Russia just in case. One of those subs is headed by Gene Hackman and his new number 2, Denzel. Hackman is an old school type badass, doing whatever the orders tell him too and busting ass when he has to. But Denzel is more of a thinker, and when a message comes in to launch a nuke, the sub goes to work. But what happens when a second message comes in but is cut off before the message can get to its point? Do you try to get the message, putting your sub at risk at being found? Or do you go through with the launch, having the orders you have with the risk that they are outdated? That's the dilemma at hand. And the movie actually takes it's time to have these debates and let them simmer. Aside from a duel between subs, this is not a movie filled with action. It's a tense movie, making you wait on the edge of your seats to find out what is gonna happen. And it even makes Hackman the villain, but an understandable villain and one who isn't a total bad guy. Hell, he isn't even a bad guy. Just a man who may be past his due point, and he recognizes that and it's refreshing. The movie is surprisingly smart from Tony Scott, and it's a nice reminded of what he was capable of with a good script. This is a good little 90s thriller with a morally grey outlook on things and it's a refreshing change of pace for a war movie.
Top Movies
1. Crimson Tide
2. The Equalizer
3. Fright Night
4. Olympus Has Fallen
Top 5 Performances
1. Denzel Washington - Crimson Tide
2. Gene Hackman - Crimson Tide
3. Chris Sarandon - Fright Night
4. Denzel Washington - The Equalizer
5. Gerard Butler - Olympus Has Fallen
Top 5 Moments
1. Relieved of Duty - Crimson Tide
2. McCall Equalizes The Pimps - The Equalizer
3. The Club Scene - Fright Night
4. The Attack - Olympus Has Fallen
5. The Final Message - Crimson Tide
- Tom Lorenzo
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