One would think that professional wrestlers are tailormade action stars. They are athletic, charismatic, decent at improv, and willing to do just about anything to put on a good show. Also, one of the most important weapons in a wrestler’s arsenal is the ability to play a character. These men and women spend months or years crafting characters to which roaring crowds respond, either favorably, in the case of faces, or with gleeful jeers, in the case of heels. These are people who know how to work crowds, but remove the crowds, leaving nothing but cameras and crew, and the vast majority of wrestlers turned actor seem a bit lost. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Money Plane”
Some of Those Responsible: Thomas Jane
Shitty Movie Sundays: Nemesis (1992)
A true mark of quality in a shitty sci-fi flick from Hollywood in the 1980s and ’90s was use of the Kaiser Steel Mill in Fontana, California, as a shooting location. Just check out this list on IMDb. The more ruinous parts of the mill were a perfect location for a post-apocalyptic or dystopian landscape. Those portions have since been paved over for the Auto Club Speedway, but they live on in films like Robocop, The Running Man, and Nemesis, a 1992 cyberpunk, neo-noir action flick that, somehow, spawned a direct-to-video franchise.
Directed by Albert Pyun from a screenplay by Rebecca Charles, Nemesis stars Olivier Gruner as Alex Rain, a gritty detective in the LAPD. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Nemesis (1992)”
October Horrorshow: Deep Blue Sea
There are some serious contenders on the short list of Official Movie of Shitty Movie Sundays. Alien: Resurrection holds the crown by default, but challengers include stalwart paragons of shittiness such as Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone, and Reign of Fire. Both of those films differ from Alien: Resurrection in one important aspect: they are fun. Alien: Resurrection is an overwrought chore of a film. It has none of the loose bravura of Spacehunter or the hilariously over the top seriousness of Reign of Fire. Why then, does Alien: Resurrection continue to hold the crown? Because it was first. Someday I’ll tire of using Alien: Resurrection as my prototype. For now, long live the king. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Deep Blue Sea”