Vernon Wells – Missile Test

Filmmakers Damien Lee and David Micthell have been in the b-movie business for over forty years each. Their work graced the trashier shelves of video stores from Vancouver to Hamburg, and now reach wide through the tubes. To Shitty Movie Sundays, their contributions compare favorably to contemporaries such as David Winters, Mark A. Prior, or Cirio H. Santiago. None household names, but for the mutants, solid bona fides.

Last Man Standing is an early effort from both, with Lee and Mitchell sharing screenwriting and producing credit, while Lee directed. The film is a heavy-handed depiction of underground bare-knuckle cage fights. It was a surprise to see how earnest Lee and company were at times. This flick can be dreary here and there, and has the feeling of a shitty version of On the Waterfront. Continue reading “Last Man Standing (1987), aka Circle Man”

What a gloriously stupid movie. When I think about 1980s action, all sorts of flicks bang off the inside of my skull. Cobra, Road House, Die Hard, any of the Rambo flicks, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It was an amazing genre of film that Hollywood has never been able to fully replicate. That’s not for lack of trying. Last year there were two movies about terrorists taking over the White House, and both could have been Die Hard flicks, circa 1989. Something happened to moviegoing audiences since the ’80s, though. I’m not going to pretend for a second that we’re any more sophisticated as a group, but maybe we grew accustomed to the shenanigans of ’80s action, and that’s why it doesn’t work as well today. But if a viewer happens to be in a nostalgic mood for black and white characters, senseless one-liners, and guns that never run out of bullets, then there is hardly a better movie than Commando. Continue reading “Commando”