Accident Man

This is part of the recent wave of assassin-sploitation movies where everyone is an expert hitman. Based on a UK comic. Accident Man is one who makes his kills look like accidents. You can't blame someone if a tub falls on the guy, right?

Scott Adkins is a name I've been hearing more of lately. He's one of those physical actors notable for fight choreography, and as one might have guessed... these are some pretty good fight scenes. I mean, that's what we're watching these movies for, right? And is that movies, plural?


Accident Man (2018)

There's a lot of typical hitman tropes here, but we also get a pretty decent backstory of how he got into the business. His mentor is played by the late great Ray Stevenson, giving our protagonist some sort of family connection to affect his decisions throughout the movie. Basically a revenge mystery movie where our guy beats his way to the truth.

Accident Man: Hitman's Holiday (2022)

Whereas our first film is more action/crime/drama, the sequel veers into comedy. It's not distractingly different, but it is pretty funny, and it is quite trashy. Our hero is blackmailed to protect a imbecilic mark, and the assassin is someone he has a strong history with. Give it a guess who that might be.

It got a few good laughs out of me. There's also a psycho killer clown, but there are no Maltesers in Malta.


Flamingo.

#Review

The Exorcist: Believer

The trailer for the movie looked terribly underwhelming. They wanted to market this as a straight-up horror film, but if you think about it, the original Exorcist was more of a psychological drama for most of the movie. This movie goes for that approach too, meaning that its trailer isn't showing you the movie you end up getting.

What you get is actually a pretty simple story. Two young girls go missing, and their respective families experience some bizarre shenanigans. It takes the legacy sequel approach by bringing back a familiar face or two, but the main idea is pretty concise. I wouldn't say it's very scary, but it is well made. That's what I say about the original, too. It has a few decent creepy moments, and I think it was trying to channel Hereditary a bit, especially by casting Hereditary actress Ann Dowd in yet another spiritual horror character role. I also liked the ending. It's a bit of a twist, both bittersweet and still quite bleak.

For anyone wondering about continuity, nothing in the movie negates the events of Exorcist 2 and 3, and the director confirms that. So none of that garbage where it's a sequel only to the first film, though the first film of course will be the only film they reference, because even I don't remember part 2, and modern audiences shouldn't have to relieve that mess either.

Not a bad flick like I was expecting, but poor box office and reviews tell us we probably wont be getting this turned into a trilogy like they planned. I wasn't terribly attached to that idea anyway. As a stand alone legacy sequel, it works just fine.

#Review

Marvel's Echo

Hulu and Disney+ premiered all 5 episodes of this today. Marvel is such crap these days, but I was optimistic because of the TV-MA rating, honing in on the Netflix vibes of Marvel's greatest era. Either way, this is still a Disney production, so it must suck, right? Especially since this is a cultural/fem-centric show that nobody asked for, which I've been saying from the get-go would suck.

Overall, I didn't hate it. It has it's moments, but it's definitely pandering to the native American scene. They shoehorn that shit in hard, and when they do, the show suffers from it. Not because embracing the heritage is bad, but because they do it in that generic magic/superhero way that always leaves me rolling my eyes. Fortunately, that garbage is minimal, and it's a mostly grounded series with enough violence to keep me from calling it some lame tame BS.

The main character does an okay job, but I'm really only watching it for Vincent D'Onofrio. He's still fantastic as the Kingpin, stealing every scene he's in. Anyone expecting Daredevil, know that he's only in it for one scene, but I had to hold back tears of joy as it reminded me of the good old days. And for anyone wondering about continuity, the character of Echo first appeared in the Hawkeye show, which was pretty lousy, but all of her and Kingpin's main points are recapped in episode 1.

A lot of Marvel's best stuff comes when they're not trying to embrace the superhero angle, but rather when they keep things real and gritty. Keep the CGI usage minimal and this is a direction that Marvel should stick with if they want to get me excited again.

#Review

The Fate of Burt Gummer

I think the Tremors franchise is great. Tremors (1990), Tremors 2: Aftershocks (1996), Tremors 3: Back to Perfection (2001), and definitely Tremors: The Series (2003)... but not so much Tremors 4: The Legend Begins (2004), or Tremors 5: Bloodlines (2015), or Tremors 6: A Cold Day in Hell (2018), but at least Tremors 7: Shrieker Island (2020) was a little more interesting.

I honestly didn't care for Jamie Kennedy as Burt's son, and I think he looked crappy. That's the best way I can describe him. Burt's son shouldn't be crappy, so they wrote him out. Everybody needs a sidekick for exposition, so we'll give you Jon Heder to react to Burt's survivalist militaristic attitude. Throw in Richard Brake as some jerk mercenary hunting the graboids and getting killed by the shriekers and whatnot, and there's your movie. Mildly amusing at best.


It's a more forgettable entry like the last three, but it is made important by its ending. An ending regarding the fate of one Burt Gummer. Now, I know Universal likes to milk this franchise, while keeping it on the lesser DTV tier, but the series has one constant, and that's Michael Gross.

If Burt Gummer is out of the picture, is the franchise over? Are we headed for the inevitable remake? A spin off with the crappy son and/or Napoleon Dynamite? An actual sequel with Kevin Bacon? Or does Michael Gross come back as a relative of Burt's? Maybe a descendent in some future graboid dystopian earth?

Either way, it's pretty sad to see this franchise fizzle out. I wish Fred Ward and Kevin Bacon could have reteamed with Burt Gummer for one last adventure, but like I said, this series was never a priority for Universal. Burt kept the fire burning though. I read that there are still talks of him returning, but I wont hold my breath. I think this may be it for the original Tremors series. 😥

I'm only 3 years late to this movie, by the way. Some fan I am.

#Review

The Iron Claw (2023)

I saw this the other day and I've been thinking about it. It's an A24 wrestling biopic set in early 80s Dallas about a family of brothers who wrestle under their father's strict and domineering guidance. Dad is played by Holt McCallany (Fight Club, Mindhunter), and he's a real piece of work. At times, he seems like a good dad, but he pushes his wrestling ambitions onto his sons too much. He doesn't do the best job fathering his children, as you'll see here in various scenes of him being a cold, greedy prick. A good performance by Holt, though.

Headlines dictate the real star here is Efron. He plays the "primary" brother in this story, which I wont spoil here, but it's sad as hell. I went in blind and I'm not a wrestling fan, but it's got to be a good movie to reel you in when you don't find the subject matter interesting. Like how I don't give a fuck about the stock market, but The Wolf of Wall Street is still a great movie. Efron puts in a heartfelt performance here, and he beefed up more than ever for it.

I love the vibe of period-piece biopics like this. I guess A24 likes to keep things classy, so I regret to inform all of you that The Iron Claw is not a trash epic. It is just a good regular movie. 😟



Random notes:

• I was quite amused by the Ric Flair scenes.

• Lily James is the love interest, notable for Pam & Tommy. I almost didn't recognize her.

• The vertical suplex Efron takes outside the ring and on the hard concrete floor really got me. 😲

#Review

Payback 1999

Mel Gibson in an urban crime syndicate double-cross flick. This was a cool movie with a great cast. Mel plays Porter the punching bag out to collect his $130,000^$70,000, working his way up the food chain to get it, all while the police and other parties are trying to get their cut of his money. Porter takes a fair amount of abuse, but Max/Riggs/Fatman is a tough guy and can handle it. Maria Bello plays the love interest, and I've always liked her.

Gregg Henry is here too, and I always liked him, ever since Just Before Dawn. A sleazeball here, but amusing. Then you have Freddy Rodriguez, Bill Duke, William Devane, Kris Kristofferson, and Lucy Liu. And they all want to kill Porter.

It's sort of a revenge movie, but it's motivated more by getting even. Financially. There's definitely a lot of great crime tropes here, like the crooked cop, the blackmail, the extortion, and all those wonderful bad things we all love so much.

I think visually, they drained the colors for their urban aesthetic. A bit distracting at first, but I didn't notice it so much after a while.
There are some really fun scenes in this movie, and I'm wondering why I didn't care for it on my first viewing some 15 years ago. My younger self was an embarrassment, because this movie is great. I give it 5 stars! Out of 7.

#Review

Reacher, the tv show on Amazon

My boss recommended it. I never saw the Tom Cruise movies, because why would I? My knowledge was pretty slim, so it was an interesting ride. The character is portrayed by Alan Ritchson, a burly 6'3" actor, which is quite far from Tom Cruise's 5'7" height. Tom is known for playing tall characters, because an actor can act as any character of any height, and damn you if you think otherwise.

He is a pretty cool character, in this rendition of the source material, which is a book or series of books. Too lazy to look it up, but this particular show was pretty kick-ass. At this point, I have only seen the first season. Season 2 is currently airing on Prime.

So basically, Reacher is an ex-military bad-ass drifter who gets sucked into a police investigation in a small Georgia town. There are a lot of great moments and cool scenes throughout, as well as some wonderful violent bits. Good characters, good mystery, and overall solid entertainment.

I also got some T2 vibes here and there, particularly in the season climax due to the industrial and warm-colored setting. Plus, I hear season 2 has some direct T2 references, made blatantly by one Robert Patrick. Leave it to me to steer any topic into a Terminator discussion. I think he could probably make for a great T-800, but recent fan-casting wants him as Batman. Though I wouldn't mind Henry Cavill as a T-800 either, because that recent fan art looked cool.


Reacher, season 1. RECOMMENDED


Do the Tom Cruise movies suck?

#Review

Thanksgiving 2023

We all know the story. It was a Grindhouse trailer that's been in limbo for about 15 years, and just when we had lost all hope... this movie suddenly and actually exists. Thanksgiving has been pretty scarce on horror, so Eli Roth decided to step up and finally give the holiday a worthwhile slasher flick, and he's still got it.

A year after a Black Friday mishap, a target group of the teen variety get picked off in thanksgiving-esque ways. Meanwhile, the police investigate the whodunnit which takes some cues/scenes from the original trailer, but adds a tech angle with social media. I guess slasher flicks have finally mastered how to keep cell phones from ruining the magic of the formula. These days, you simply need to integrate cell phones into the plot, because they're not going anywhere.


Honestly, I never had really high hopes for the movie, so I went in with low expectations. It was fun. I laughed a lot, particularly at the opening Black Friday havoc, because I think of how stupid that shit is. Stupid because people used to get trampled for real, and stupid because it's barely relevant today with online shopping and cheap/free deliveries.

I'm happy that a horror fan like Eli Roth finally made a slasher movie. You would think that would have been a thing years ago, but nope. I'm a box of hair, and I approve of this movie.

#Review

Amityville Karen 2022

A brief recap of Amityville movies... there were a few movies about a haunted house, then in the 3rd movie, the house blew up. At part 4 and just about every movie after that, it was about some random cursed items from the house winding up in cities all over the country. It didn't really matter after a certain point, and then the b-movie companies went hog-wild with it, just like they did with shark movies. There are infinity Amityville movies now, and this is one of them.

I was actually wondering wtf this movie had to do with Amityville, but they clear that up for you: it's haunted wine from the Amityville house. And now it ends up in the hands of a Karen in California.

Honestly, who cares about the Amityville part. The first half of this movie is straight-up about a horrible Karen being a horrible person, and that works all on its own. The whole idea of our Karen is reminiscent of how a Mink Stole would react in Desperate Living. I think Mink might be the OG Karen actually.

Our Karen is played by Lauren Francesca, who is actually pretty hot and therefore easy to watch, no matter how much of a cunt she is being. Besides, you don't ever actually hate her, because her depiction is too funny to take seriously. "Oh, I forgot to harass the gardener today!"

Eventually, she drinks enough of that tainted wine to get possessed and/or go insane, and she starts killing her stupid friends over trivial matters. It's basically a perfect plot, though the execution is still only mildly amusing. Shit rating on imdb makes for some good points though.

#Review

Five Nights at Freddy's 2023

I never played the games, but I did watch Willy's Wonderland recently. That might have been a more kid appropriate plotline, had they toned down that R-rating just a tad. But since that simple plotted movie already exists, Five Nights needed to be different.

Blumhouse tackled this video game adaption and pushed it pretty hard for its PG-13 rating. We're given a troubled protagonist struggling with an unresolved child kidnapping, custody battles, unemployment, pill addiction... that's a bit much for a kid movie, right? Let alone the implied violence of getting one's head sawed apart, or being gruesomely assimilated into an animatronic... or the actual violence of rotting corpses, cuts, stabbings, and people getting ripped in half. Not bad, Blumhouse. You made me just a little bit unsettled there for a while. Not because I deem it graphic, but because kids are decensitized enough to deem it as casual. If kids can handle this without issue, our old go-to slasher franchises ought to be a piece of cake for them to sit through.

#Review