In choosing a film for Shitty Movie Sundays, care must be taken. Too often, before being watched for a Shitty Movie Sundays review, a movie appears to have the all the right ingredients that make for a shitty movie. There’s a veteran of shitty cinema in a lead role, the ideas behind the film are ridiculous, and the trailer is an absolute howler, but then the film turns out to be more mediocre than shitty. A mediocre film is such a disappointment. At least when a movie is bad, and really wallows in it, it can be a captivating watch. But a mediocre film just fades away. It has no significance and leaves no lasting impression. What to do, then? Make an executive decision, that’s what. Timecop, the 1994 film from Peter Hyams, is a forgettable sci-fi/action flick that normally wouldn’t be bad enough for this space, but then there are the cars. Oh, my goodness, the cars. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Timecop”
Tag: Thriller Flick
Stallone Month: Bullet to the Head
If there is one positive from Hurricane Katrina, one not worth the cost yet still a positive, it has been the emergence of a Louisiana style of crime filmmaking — a bayou noir. Filmmakers have been drawn to the state in a show of solidarity with the residents of Louisiana and to take advantage of tax credits. It’s a win-win for the film industry and for local economies. Whether or not it’s a win for audiences rests on whether or not these films are worth watching. Continue reading “Stallone Month: Bullet to the Head”
Stallone Month: Eye See You, aka D-Tox
What in the world is this movie? If a viewer is like me, then they have never heard of Eye See You, or D-Tox, or The Outpost, or whatever title producers attached to this redheaded stepchild of a movie. From 2002, but filmed in 1999, Eye See You was a film beset by reshoots and plagued by unhappy men in suits, resulting in a film that trickled out into the public without fanfare or wide release. Continue reading “Stallone Month: Eye See You, aka D-Tox”
Stallone Month: Driven
What a putrid, rotten mess of a movie. I was really hoping before I sat down to watch this movie for Stallone Month that it was not as bad as I remembered — that time had distorted what I recalled being one of the worst films I have ever seen. As it turned out, this memory was a reliable one. I hate this movie. I haven’t hated a movie this much since I reviewed Return of the Living Dead: Rave to the Grave. In fact, this movie joins the short list of films I absolutely despise.
Driven, from 2001, was a passion project from Sylvester Stallone. Apparently he had been doing extensive research on the sport of motor racing while working on draft after draft of this film’s screenplay, and I can’t see any evidence of that. There are objects in this film that resemble racecars and people dressed up as racecar drivers, but that is where similarities with the actual sport end. Sly took the look and feel of a sport and jettisoned all else in order to shove it into a stupid and flimsy narrative. Oh, and lest Sly take all the blame, this flick was directed by Renny Harlin, and features some staggeringly inept performances from Sly, Burt Reynolds, Gina Gershon, and someone named Kip Pardue. Continue reading “Stallone Month: Driven”
Stallone Month: Get Carter (2000)
Get Carter, the 1971 gangster flick starring Michael Caine, is a classic. Get Carter, the 2000 gangster flick starring Sylverster Stallone, is not. Such is the way of things. The most difficult thing about watching this movie is knowing that a better alternative exists.
Directed by Stephen Kay from a screenplay by David McKenna, Get Carter is the second adaptation of Ted Lewis’s novel Jack’s Return Home. Sly stars as Jack Carter, a thug who collects outstanding debts for a Las Vegas crime boss. Jack returns home to Seattle after learning of the death of his brother, Ritchie. The death doesn’t seem to be on the up and up, so he decides to stick around and see what he can find out.
Everyone Jack meets, including Ritchie’s friends, colleagues, and spouse, want him to leave. No one wants a critical eye turned towards Ritchie’s death because, of course, he was murdered. In order to find out why, and to exact revenge, Jack must cut his way through Seattle’s underbelly. And it is a scuzzy place to be. One of the first people Jack confronts about Ritchie is Cyrus Paice (Mickey Rourke), a crime boss who makes some of his cash with underground pornography. Continue reading “Stallone Month: Get Carter (2000)”
Stallone Month: Cop Land
Audiences haven’t gotten a lot of Sylvester Stallone in an ensemble cast. Sure, there was a fairly large gathering of stars in the Expendables flicks, but Sly was the star of those films, full stop. Cop Land came after a string of mild box office successes and a couple of flops. Sly’s stock in Hollywood was on the downswing, and when this movie came out, it was touted as a comeback, of sorts. Continue reading “Stallone Month: Cop Land”
Stallone Month: Daylight
Daylight, the 1996 film from screenwriter Leslie Bohem and director Rob Cohen, should not be this bad of a movie. It’s the perfect vehicle for its star, and does absolutely nothing wrong in following the Irwin Allen disaster movie playbook. It’s swift and action-packed, and there’s enough tension that it should be able to keep a viewer’s attention. But, the characters. My God, the characters. Continue reading “Stallone Month: Daylight”
Stallone Month: The Specialist
When one thinks of Sylvester Stallone, the first things that come to mind might be Rocky and Rambo. Boxing and explosions. The underdog and the vengeful. There was very much a narrow lane where Sly felt comfortable both as an actor and as a filmmaker. The Specialist, from 1994, at first feels like it fits neatly into the narrative of Sly’s career. In it, he plays an ex-CIA explosives expert turned hitman. That short description brings to mind visions of fiery explosions, gunfights, and maybe even a final fight with a main bad guy. In other words, there is little reason to suspect this film is anything other than an action flick. But it’s not. It’s modern noir, something Sly hadn’t been part of in his career since, maybe, Nighthawks. Continue reading “Stallone Month: The Specialist”
Stallone Month: Lock Up
“Lock Up is a strange lesson in how Hollywood movies are made…[W]e have a star, a theme, a shooting date, a budget, a studio, but…no script.” — John Flynn, director of Lock Up
I don’t know how often films are made on the fly, but in putting together Stallone Month, it seems that it was common for projects Sly worked on to barely make it to completion. Another commonality in these films is that Sly worked very hard to keep the projects together. Whether it’s Eye See You (later this month), or Tango & Cash (tomorrow), or today’s film, the people who worked with Sly are effusive in praising him for the efforts he made to make sure a movie came off. Still, production troubles rarely bode well for a film. Continue reading “Stallone Month: Lock Up”
Stallone Month: Cobra
Oh, lord. Is this flick produced by the Cannon Group, the most lovable pair of shameless profiteers that Hollywood has ever seen? Yes, it is. Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus did as much for my love of shitty movies as any other filmmaker not named Carpenter. But, this month isn’t about Cannon. It’s about Sly Stallone. And Cobra, the 1986 film written by Sly and directed by George P. Cosmatos (who went on to direct films about a killer rat and a fish monster), might just be peak Stallone. Coming the year after Rocky IV, Sly wasn’t going to get any bigger. Continue reading “Stallone Month: Cobra”