Caught the trailer and thought it worth a try. Glad I did. Has elements of “Leon the Professional” (a little girl imprints on a mystery man who has a cactus instead of a peace lily), lots of Korean Bieber hair and some really twisted villains. Most Asian fight scenes drag on and on; these are sharp and to the point. The final battle is truly spectacular.

FF=0

I saw bad reviews on this, so when it arrove in its red-and-white envelope, I almost sent it back. But I needed a break so I stuck it in the player and – really enjoyed it. It has all my favorite stuff: a well-paced buddy film with action and creepy horror, plus =great= scenery well filmed. I was so engaged my thumb rarely strayed to the FF button. Trite dialogue, yes, but Cage and Perlman held it together. And Clair Foy made a great witch.

FF=1

I thought I’d like this better. A lot of good things about it, including the cast, but somehow it didn’t gel for me. I think it ended poorly. I mean, it ended as you knew it must, but lacked catharsis. If I had to place blame, I’d point at the director. Hanna is played too flat; she needs more of an arc. With a few changes, this could have been more satisfying.

FF=2

Pretty goofy. Yeah its look is true to the comics, but that hokey Kirby headgear, so cool on paper, is ridiculous on real people. Asgard (didn’t it used to have a 3rd a?) looks like a combo of a Richard Powers city and the Mormon Tabernacle organ. Odin opts out of and then back into the story at the moments most convenient to the screenwriter. The Bifrost technology was cool though. Engaging and entertaining but pretty damn silly.

FF=0

A sometimes funny, sometimes gory alien invasion flick that gets a lot done on a low budget. It’s set in one of the South London sink estates You might want to run the subtitles (I did) because at times the Sowf Lunnon accent’s ‘ard, innit, fam.

FF=2

Lots of fun but much too long. It’s more of a caper than a racing flick. It opens with a super-daring break out of Vin Diesel from a prison bus (they say no one was killed in that crash – ha!) and ends with a jaw-dropping chase through Rio that, once you suspend any and all knowledge of physics, is the most fun I’ve had during a chase scene in ages. (Maybe it took place in a non-Newtonian universe.)  I usually FF thru chases – not here.

FF=2

(note the article in the title – this is the 1975 Peckinpah film) Awful. Just. Awful. How could the guy who made “The Wild Bunch” make this? The plot and dialogue are embarrassing (Stirling Silliphant should have taken his name off this preachy, confused, mish-mash script). The less said about the acting (a great cast on paper) the better. And the finale of the tired finale: James Caan stands by and watches two Japanese guys (one in ninja garb) wail away with katanas. No, really. I’m not making that up.

FF=2

Should be “Cowboys & Indians & Aliens” – sort of like a Lego set with really nifty pieces that don’t quite fit together. And when you do get them together, you’re not sure what you’ve got. Did they use up all their effects budget to pay the big-name stars? Because the CGI aliens were lame. The alien wrist gun was cool, but it just happened to land on his wrist and just happened to fit and just happened to respond to his nervous system. And the aliens attacked the cowboys (and Indians) in hand-to-hand combat instead of zapping them. Eight names get writing credit and not an original idea in the film. But that’s what you’d expect with Roberto Orci involved. A great cast, some great set pieces, but overall a letdown.

FF=2

One scary film. A Iraqi man is forced to become Uday Hussein’s double. Uday (Saddam’s son) is psychotic – a sex, drug, and power-crazed oxygen waster who kidnaps and rapes school girls and flogs soccer players who don’t perform to his expectations. An example of the horror that results when unlimited power falls into the hands of a psycho. US troops killed him in 2003.

FF=2

An amazing experience.  Brian Helgeland was fired from Payback (2 days after he won an Oscar for LA Confidential) because it was too dark. The studio was looking for a Lethal Weapon look-alike and he was staying true to the source novel, The Hunter by Richard Stark.  I’d always liked the theatrical Payback because Mel Gibson’s Walker was much closer to the book’s Parker than Lee Marvin’s version in Point Blank (1967).  But the director’s cut has an entirely different 3^rd act (no Kris Kristofferson) that’s so much darker and truer to the book. Yeah, it’s probably too dark for the general public, but not for my readers. So I say to you: rent the director’s cut and marvel. (And listen to the commentary.)

FF=0