Gran Torino (2009)


Directed by: Clint Eastwood

Starring: Clint Eastwood, Bee Vang, Ahney Her, and Christopher Carley

Plot: Walt Kowalski is a widower who holds onto his prejudices despite the changes in his Michigan neighborhood and the world around him. Kowalski is a grumpy, tough-minded, unhappy an old man, who can't get along with either his kids or his neighbors, a Korean War veteran whose prize possession is a 1972 Gran Torino he keeps in mint condition. When his neighbor Thao, a young Hmong teenager under pressure from his gang member cousin, tries to steal his Gran Torino, Kowalski sets out to reform the youth. Drawn against his will into the life of Thao's family, Kowalski is soon taking steps to protect them from the gangs that infest their neighborhood. Taken from www.imdb.com.


Post-1990, Clint Eastwood's career as a director has been pretty mediocre. Oh sure his swan song to the Man-With-No-Name in "Unforgiven" was wonderful, and "Space Cowboys", "Flags of Our Fathers", and "Letters From Iwo Jima" were all pretty damn good, and I seem to be the only person who thought "Million Dollar Baby" was just a poor story adapted for shock value and tear jerker potential. But for the most part Eastwood's career since the 90s has been composed of the best movies you've never cared about.

I want to say I was optimistic going into this film. I want to tell you that knowing Clint Eastwood is a capable writer/director/actor I knew I would see something good. I cannot tell you this however, as it would be bullshit. I came in expecting another great film that I'm only going to watch once and never see again.

In this story we follow the character of Walt Kowalski. An old and extremely angry man with a family full of selfish fuckheads that he doesn't care about. His wife has just died and the once quiet happy neighborhood he's lived in all his life has now become a ghetto dominated by Asian-Americans (mainly Hmong people.) It becomes fairly obvious in the first establishing shots of the neighborhood that Walt is a dying breed as his is the only house on the block that isn't in shambles and still has a decent lawn.

Walt's next-door neighbor Thao (Bee Vang) gets wrapped up with his cousin Spider's (Doua Moua) gang and as his initiation attempts to steal Walt's 1972 Gran Torino. Naturaly he fails as you don't fuck with the Eastwood and the gang attempts to punish him for messing up. This culminates with Walt stepping out into the yard and holding an M-1 Garand into of the gangster's face and proclaiming the cranky old bastard mantra "Get off my lawn." Followed by no less than 3 paragraphs of racial slurs.

As thanks for saving Thao and as punishment for trying to steal Walt's car and thus dishonoring the family, Thao's sister Sue (Ahney Her) volunteer's him to work to pay back for what he has done. Walt sets Thao to working on the house across the street from his own and ultimately starts to warm up to Thao and Sue and ultimately becomes closer to their family than he is to his own. He sets out to give Thao an oppurtunity to do something other than end up in prison by helping find a job and stand up for himself. I can't reveal more of the plot without giving it away but if you've ever seen an Eastwood film you can surely figure out where things go from there.


I don't think I have to tell you what kind of performance Eastwood gives. In a world where once magnificent actors like Robert Deniro and Al Pacino are aging like mayonaisse in the sun it's good to see that Clint is as good as he ever was. Not only is Walt himself a dying breed but the type of character is also going the way of the dodo. He's essentially a modern day Archie Bunker, a prejudiced old man that not only isn't a skinhead but actually is rather good hearted.

It's made rather clear early on that Walt isn't actually a racist as he seems to hate all people equally but people still seem to throw fits over his use of racial slurs, even if he does spread it across the board for white people as well as minorities. Walt is a man that judges people as individuals and uses insults as terms of endearment (the scenes with Walt and his barber illistrate this perfectly.) except in the cases when he wants to insult someone which is usually when he's got a gun pointed at them. So savor this character, we'll probably never see one like him for a long long time.

Christopher Carley is another milestone as a Catholic Priest that was apparentl y very close to Walt's wife before she died. He is keeping his promise to get Walt to come to confession. Thought the character is portrayed as 27 and Carley himself is 31 he looks to be about 19 and manages to play a much more down to Earth character than a typical priest/minister in a film. Carley serves as a play at Walt's faith throughout the film, clearly the man sees himself going to hell and sees no way around it and Carley seems to ground him and force him to face himself at several key points.

Bee Vang and Ahney Her are both wonderful despite what people say about their acting. All of the Hmong people in this film have no previous acting experience (aside from antagonist Doua Moua) but they do wonderfully. The real problem is that their speech patterns seem very forced and unnatural which is taken as bad acting. To me it just sounded like the speech patterns of people who speak English as a second language and fit with the characters, it's far more apparent with Ahney than it is with Bee. Ignoring their speech patterns though they are both well-fleshed out characters that form a very realistic dynamic with Eastwood, you get the impression that they are to Walt the children he wishes he had instead of his selfish asshole sons.


"Gran Torino" is a drama, but it's full of humor which I've always felt is the backbone of a good film no matter what genre or subject matter. Almost all of the laughs come from Walt, and it's not over anything meaning to be particularly silly or jokey. Walt is just simply one of those characters so cantankerous that you just start laughing when someone says or does something as you know his reaction will be priceless. Especially during the time where he's serving as a mentor to Thao, particularly a scene where he takes him into the barber shop to teach him how men talk.

Of course Walt is also probably the most badass old men in all of the land. Eastwood is still in Man-With-No-Name mode for most of the movie, including his trademark tobacco spitting chain smoking moments and his way of kicking the shit out of people about 3-4 times his junior. This still doesn't take awa from the more dramatic aspects of the character as you see he is a very sad and tortured man that's angry at the world for all of his problems.

The movie switches from lighthearted to dramtic rather seamlessly and the scene where it does is intensely powerful even if the source of drama comes from the old book of tricks that everybody uses. And the ending is equally moving even if you do see it coming from a mile away.

If anything this film just solidified my point that Eastwood needs to make "Dirty Harry 6." Sure he's said this is his last film, but he said that with "Million Dollar Baby" too.


It's powerful, moving, and emotional but not alienating to the audience like most Oscar bait seems to be. In the same way that "Unforgiven" was a swan song for the Man With No Name, "Gran Torino" is a swan song for the tortured old man that just wants to feel like he's done something good with is life.

I give "Gran Torino" a 5 out of 5. I highly reccomend seeing this in theaters.

My Bloody Valentine 3-D (2009)

Directed by: Patrick Lussier

Starring: Jensen Ackles, Jaime King, Kerr Smith

Other Actors of Note: Tom Atkins

Plot: Tom (Ackles) returns to his hometown on the tenth anniversary of the Valentine's night massacre that claimed the lives of 22 people. Instead of a homecoming, however, Tom finds himself suspected of committing the murders, and it seems like his old flame (King) is the only one will believes he's innocent. Taken from www.imdb.com.


Ever since the remake of "Dawn of the Dead" came out I've been saying that rather than pissing people off by remaking good movies that the industry should instead remake bad movies and it took nearly five years but Hollywood seems to have finally taken the hint. Now we've got remakes of "My Bloody Valentine", "Friday the 13th", "Night of the Demons", and "Last House on the Left." At this rate I expect a remake of "Chopping Mall" in 2015.

You see, a good movie has lots of die-hard fans that love it so naturally even a good remake will never be able to live up to the original, but a bad movie is perfect for remakes as it won't piss anybody off except the psychopaths who are stupid enough to refer to them as "masterpieces."

The original "My Bloody Valentine" was a cash-in on the holiday slasher movie trend of the era and seeing as Halloween, Christmas, New Years, Mother's Day, and Friday the 13th were taken they picked from the remaining holidays of Easter, Thanksgiving, The 4th of July, Valentine's Day, and Arbor Day and decided that Valentine's was the least retarded one left.
You'll note that Easter ("Peter Rottentail"), Thanksgiving (Eli Roth's "Thanksgiving" trailer), and the 4th of July ("Uncle Sam") have been done but Arbor Day remains sadly lacking in the gigantic psychotic deformed retard with an axe category.

Now "My Bloody Valentine" wasn't a "good" movie by a longshot, even the recent release that features all the additional gore effects and cut scenes is at best blissfully mediocre. The good is that it has an iconic killer (a miner in a gas mask with a pickaxe), a memorable kill (a woman in a dryer), and a good scare (a bunch of miners' coveralls on hooks that drop all around a frightened woman as she runs around amongst them, screaming.) Fortunately for fans of the original (and I use the term "fans" lightly) all these things made the transation, and more fortunately than that, nothing else did!

The story remains roughly the same, a bunch of miners get caught in a cave-in because of someone else's mistake (in this film it's Jensen Ackle's Tom, a character in the original which was called TJ) of the 5 men in the mine only one is left alive when they are rescued, that man is Harry Warden (in this version Harry killed the other men to conserve oxygen, in the original it was because they were in there for weeks and he ate them.) Harry then goes on a rampage to get revenge (Original Harry's body count is 2, this Harry's bodycount is 22) and kills a bunch of people with a pickaxe on Valentine's Day. 10 years later on another Valentine's Day a man in a miner suit is killing people, is it possible that Harry Warden has returned?! (*Gasp*)


This movie has the usual cast of teen heart-throbs that plague your average horror movie with their shocking stupidity. But the real surprise is how well they work especially since they have to play their characters in two different time-spans 10 years apart.

First there's Jensen Ackles who plays Tom. I remember Ackles most for his work on "Smallville" where he was bland, unconvincing, and outshined by Allison Mack and Tom Welling. (Which is like saying that you were outrun by a crippled 3-toed sloth.) Jensen is honestly one of the finer parts in the movie. In the prologue of the story he comes across as a dumb kid which doesn't sound so remarkable but when you see the character as an adult the contrast is well done. He also does a good job of playing Tom in a manner where you're not sure whether he's the killer or not. At times he seems sane and at times he seems crazy and you believe both equally.

Kerr Smith's transition from teenager to adult works as wel but it's more physical. He opts for a beard and mustache and acts like an even bigger asshole. Apparently in the 10 years since the massacre, Axel has become the Sheriff and I must say I have never hated a hero charcter more. Axel really is a prick and it's easy to see why he's one of the suspects for being the killer.

Jaime King plays Sarah, aka the "last girl" of the movie. She's definitely much more prolific than the original's who mostly just screamed help the entire movie but both versions are just reflections of common trends of the times. Fortunately Sarah's last girl moments only take place in the final 10 minutes of the film.

Anyhow, fuck the Tiger Beats cast, Tom fucking Atkins is in this movie! That's right, Tom Atkins, the man who's played a cop (and died horribly in that role) in just about every movie he's in returns to do the same. Does Atkins do anything new that he didn't do in "Bruiser", or "Night of the Creeps", or "Halloween 3", or "Maniac Cop?" No, but you know what, that's not the point. Atkins gets typcast for a reason, because he's fucking good at what he does and it's good to see him still doing genre films.

Finally let's talk about the miner. The original Harry Warden was some skinny Canadian guy with a beard who we saw out of gear for all of 10 seconds (cause lets be honest, once the killer is shown in their mask and costume the actor becomes a glorified stunt-man.

Well Richard John Walters plays the new Harry and he comes across as a large scary and extremely angry man. You find no trouble in believing that this man would get really pissed and off a small northwestern town. He also plays an intimidating and imposing figure in miner gear.


So here's the question. Is the 3-D gimmicky? I am going to answer that question with another question. Is 3-D ever not gimmicky? No less this is not the old style 3-D where the movie remains normal with the exception of somebody throwing something at the screen every now and then.

Oh don't get me wrong, the audience gets tons of pickaxes flying toward it and gun barrels pointing out at them but the 3D extends to the entire film. It's as if you're actually watching something occur in real-life, there are dimensions and depths to things and it really does make the entire experience different.

As mentioned before the top-shelf gore effects were recycled for this movie. We've lost the guy drowned in boiling water unfortunately as well as the guy hit in the head with a nail gun (which never really made sense in context to begin with) but the pickaxe that goes through the back of a man's head and comes out the other side with his eye on the tip remains, as doe the woman in a dryer, and it's also the first movie to ever show the skewering of a midget with a pickaxe.


For all intents and purposes "My Bloody Valentine 3-D" takes what the original did and ups the ante. Instead of through clumsy flashback the opening is told through newspaper clippings and audio clips and evidence photos with our first peek at actual footage being Harry Warden waking up really pissed off. This works better but I don't think anything will ever beat the original film's exposition of Harry screaming bloody murder as soon as the light from the search and rescue team hit his face and knawing on a severed human leg like it's a chicken drumstick.

The story is typical paint by numbers slasher film. (The wronged man seeking revenge slasher film, not the large muscular deformed man-child killing people just 'cuz slasher film.) The movie tells you who the killer is in the first 30 minutes and then spends the rest of the film pitching red herrings at you like a trainer at Sea World. Admittedly one of the aformentioned acquatic creatures is actually really convincing and the exposition of it is rather bullshit. I'm told that several different endings were filmed and I wouldn't be surprised if the one they went with wasn't the one in the script. I'm sure the DVD will tell all.

This movie also features the longest nude scene in a movie probably ever, I think more than porn. Betsy rue spends roughly 15-20 minutes on-screen without a stitch of clothing. Do you hear that? That's the sound of this movie single-handedly topping the 80s.


Don't come into this movie expecting anything more than a good time at the movies. But then again if you come into a 3-D movie expecting more than cheap fun then you need your head exhamined anyway.

I give "My Bloody Valentine 3-D" a 5 out of 5. If you can see it in 3D, do see.

The Spirit (2008)


Directed by: Frank Miller

Starring: Gabriel Macht, Eva Mendes, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johanssen, Sarah Paulson

Other Actors of Note: Louis Lombardi

Plot: Down these mean streets a man must come. A hero born, murdered, and born again. When a Rookie cop named Denny Colt returns from the beyond as The Spirit, a hero whose mission is to fight against the bad forces from the shadows of Central City. The Octopus who kills anyone unfortunate enough to see his face who has other plans. He's going to wipe out the entire city. The Spirit tracks this cold hearted killer from the city's rundown warehouses, to the damp catacombs, to the windswept waterfront all the while facing a bevy of beautiful women who either want to seduce, love or kill the masked crusader. Taken from www.imdb.com.


This movie is probably one of the least anticipated films of all time. I think Eli Roth could offer to make an Austin Powers movie and people would ask for that before Frank Miller's The Spirit. I went into this movie having not even the slightest idea of what to expect.

Having taken a crash course on The Spirit the month prior to seeing the film I was with the diehard fans of the series that Frank Miller was probably going to ruin it. The problem is... he really for the most part didn't. In fact most of the stuff in this movie are the product of Will Eisner's imagination, not Frank Miller's.

Anyhow it's the story of Denny Colt a seemingly invincible vigilante who fights crime in Central City. He clashes against his mortal enemy The Octopus and his childhood love Sand Serif.


First let's get to the meat and potatoes of this review. Gabriel Macht, who did an excellent job alongside then unkown actor Colin Farrell in the bullshit Jesse James action-western "American Outlaws" as Jesse's brother Frank, is the perfect choice for Denny Colt/The Spirit but only because Terrence Hill is far too old to play the role.

Mact just seems to capture the serious yet lighthearted determination of The Spirit perfectly. The only problem with Macht's performacne is that he plays up the whole womanizing aspect of the Spirit's personality a bit much but I suppose that's the fault of the screenwriters, not the actor.

Samuel L. Jackson is found the top, went over it, and then went back and beat his previous record of over-the-top acting. His performance as The Octopus is one of the biggest flaws this movie has and it's just another bad Samuel L. Jackson role.

Scarlett Johanssen, Eva Mendez, and all the other women in this movie are good to look at but serve little other point. Even Sand Seref (Mendez) who is arguably the heroine of the movie doesn't really do much of any importance.

Louis Lombardi is particularly good as a group of clone henchmen with a high mortality rate that are actually from Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight Returns." He's very amusing throughout if nothing else for seeing the many ways they get killed.


The aesthetics were the main thing complained about with this movie as it goes with the "Sin City" visual design. I don't know why this is such a big deal, the movie is still in color and aside from The Spirit's tie and shoes looking like they've been dipped in glow-in-the-dark paint it never gets weird.

"Sin City" was a series obviously heavily inspired by the seres even if Frank Miller decided to throw in a lot of hookers and dismemberment. I mean sure the style is a bit overdone, but it's 1940s noir, what would you have it look like?


Now I am sick and tired of hearing about the complaining about this movie. Let's cover teh first problem about the Spirit being dressed in black. Yes the Spirit in the comic was blue, but he was only blue because that's how colorization worked. The Spirit was no more blue than Batman or Venom. He was blue only because it contrasted against a black background and didn't bleed as much.

Also let's address the Octopus. It would have been really inconvenient to have Samuel L. Jackson standing off-screen the entire movie holding a hand out. He's at least wearing the Octopus' trademark gloves. But Dr. Klaw is more than a gauntlet and a white cat, Wolverine doesn't wear yellow spandex, Spider-man has organic web shooters, and you can see The Octopus. Fucking live with it. Now the fact that The Ocotopus is an invincible black pimp/samurai/nazi well... that's another thing entirely.

One of Frank Miller's dumb changes is that he's taken the fact that the Spirit can take a lot more damage and heal faster than the average human due to the chemical that killed and brought him back from the dead to mean that he's apparently The fucking Crow or some shit. Also despite what people may think one of the Spirit's 3 origins in the comics did involve The Octopus being affected by the same formula as The Spirit.

Miller off course drops in the aformentioned clones, a couple of hookers, and a couple shots of Eva Mendez' ass but the cheesy lines, over-the-top noir, tedious inner-monologue, sick yet strangely PG gore, acrobatic nonsense, over-the-top fight scenes, and bizarre characters with stupid names were all Eisner's creation, not Miller's.

Though there is a scene where The Octopus and Silken Floss torture The Spirit (which includes the melting of the world's most adorable kitten) and it's more than a little strange to see a black man and a Jewish girl dressed up like Nazis and one shot of Scarlett Johanssen where the background is a giant picture of Adolph Hitler came across as particularly wrong. The entire scene is just out of fucking nowhere and the most detrimental part to the whole picture

But you know what? Miller's changes were minimal and most of what appears on screen is straight-up Will Eisner. In fact I'm of the opinion that Miller did quite a good job of bringing the character to the screen.

But then again, what do I know? I liked Alec Baldwin's "The Shadow."


In a year of excellent comic book movies, "The Spirit" comes up as a bit of a weak entry and it's not a great movie, but don't take that to mean that it's a bad movie. It's fun, tongue-in-cheek, and entertaining action-noir movie.

I give "The Spirit" a 3 out of 5. It's not great but I imagine it will be brought back to the surface as a cult-classic in a few years.

Yes Man (2008)

Directed by: Peyton Reed

Starring: Jim Carrey, Zooey Deschanel

Other Actors of Note: Bradley Cooper, John Michael Higgins, Danny Masterson, Terence Stamp

Plot: A guy challenges himself to say "yes" to everything for an entire year.

Time to revisit the ol' abusive spouse again. If you recall from my review of "How To Lose Friends and Alienate People" review I desperately want to like romantic comedies but with the acception of "Garden State", "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", and "Shaun of the Dead" I'm hard-pressed to find a post-Julia Roberts/Richard Gere romantic comedy that doesn't make me want to gouge out my eyes with forks.

From what I understand "Yes Man" is based on a book but from what else I understand the only thing that's the same is that they both tell the tale of a guy who decides to only say "Yes." Sounds like the autobiography of Samuel L. Jackson's career to me.

Anyhow this movie is about Carl Allen, a negative jackass that lets life pass him by until he meets up with a former acquaintence who invites him to a self-help seminar where he is convinced into a "covenant" that he must say "yes" to EVERYTHING. When he tries to say no, bad things start to happen to him.

So yes, it sounds a lot like "Liar, Liar."

Jim Carrey is not so much a man as he is a force of nature. Oh sure you can hate him all you want but just like a hurricane he's gonna keep rushing in year after year and doing his own thing. In this day and age it's hard to remember what a big name Carrey used to be before he became a "serious" actor.

This is what I consider to be a return to form for Carrey, some may say that's a bad thing but I disagree. As much as I've loved "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", "The Majestic", "Lemony Snickett's A Series of Unfortunate Events", "Bruce Almighty", "Man on the Moon", and the criminally underrated "The Truman Show" I've wanted a return to the spastic rubberfaced lunatic performance that made movies like "The Mask", "Dumb and Dumber", and "The Cable Guy" as entertaining as they were. And after the fairly mediocre "Fun With Dick and Jane", the double threat of "The Grinch That Stole Christmas" and "Horton Hears a Who", and the horrible "The Number 23" I think everybody else was too.

Carrey looks like he just walked off the set of "Liar, Liar" and decided to do another movie. His performane is the kind you would have expected from any of his 90s comedies, but with the power of an accomplished actor behind them. He has that same spastic and hyper edge but he's toned it down so it's not annoying like it used to be. Carrey keeps the audience constantly entertained and keeps the laughs coming without becoming tedious.

Zooey Deschanel redeems herself for the beyond terrible performance she gave in "The Happening." She still has that deer in the headlights thing going on but she shows the capacity to use other facial expressions and tones of voice as well as emotions and seems less like a soul-less android sent to Earth to enslave humanity.

Not only does Dechanel manage to seem like a human being, she's actually quite charming as Allison, a character that seems to be more than a little bit like Clementine from "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." The fact that she looks like Katy Perry doesn't hurt.

One of the more memorable performances is by Rhys Darby as Carrey's boss Norman. Sure the character is essentially David Brent from "The Office" but to out-Ricky-Gervais Ricky Gervais is qutie a remarkable feat.

"Yes Man" is essentially "Liar, Liar" by way of plot, yes. But the difference is that Jim Carrey is a better actor at this point and the script is 150 times better. Honestly I think this was made as an "adaptation" of the book simply to avoid a lawsuit.

Every moment kept me laughing out loud even if the humor was more than a little sophomoric. What's more the movie manages to be fun even when it finally hits "the wall." If you've ever seen a comedy of this type then you know what the wall is, it's when the movie hits that point where the comedy has been stretched as far as the script writer feels it can be and hits a wall of drama that drags it down until the end of the movie.

The beautiful thing is that "Yes Man" doesn't hit the wall as soon as you expect and when it finally does it does so gracefully. Where most movies spiral downward into a pit of drama and emotion, "Yes Man" decides to fling a bunch more gags on the way down and while it's not as fun as earlier scenes it's more fun then we're used to.

While movies like this are usually hit and miss with the jokes this one seemed to succeed time after time with my personal favorite being when Jim Carrey talks a jumper down from a window ledge by serenading him with "Jumper" by Third Eye Blind whereupon all the onlookers and the jumper break out in song. (It sounds stupid as hell but it had the theater roaring with laughter.)

While "Yes Man" suffers from the romantic comedy formula it seems to try and make the process as painless as possible and be fun even when it's gotten to that serious point. It's a nice comeback for Jim Carrey's comedy performances and a good movie even if it barely counts as an adaptation of the book it's based on.

I give "Yes Man" a 5 out of 5. It's worth it.

Punisher: War Zone (2008)


Directed by: Lexi Alexander

Starring: Ray Stevenson, Dominic West, Doug Hutchinson

Other Actors of Note: Wayne Knight

Plot: After hunting down and killing hundreds of violent criminals, Frank Castle, aka The Punisher, faces his most deadly foe yet: Jigsaw.

It's no coincidence that he looks like Steven Seagal here.

I didn't know what to expect coming into this movie. Having not seen anything by Lexi Andrews, anything with Ray Stevenson, or even a trailer my mind was pretty blank walking into this one. Still, I wasn't quite expecting this.

This is the second Punisher reboot following the criminally underrated and misunderstood (we'll get to that in a minute) 2004 movie starring Thomas Jane and a phoned in John Travolta and an 80s movie starring Dolph 'Drago' Lundgren which is actually a decent film so long as you pretend it's not supposed to be an adaptation of the comic book.

Anyway Ray Stevenson is Frank Castle AKA the Punisher a vigilante with a chip on his shoulder and a stick up his ass who either broods, mopes, or tears shit up. He used to have emotions but he doesn't anymore (I'm fairly certain he killed them. With his bare hands.) His family died at a picnic when they witnessed a mob killing and he was reported dead too but he wasn't dead and nobody found out because... that's never really explained. Anyway Frank is so downtrodden over the loss of his family that he beats anything even resembling crime into a bloody sauce. He's so intimidating that villains only ever shoot him in his kevlar vest, he's also 8 and a half feet tall and made of rusty steel, he has barbed wire for teeth, chainsaws for fingers, and Tom Selleck for a cock.

Anyway the badguy from "300" (the one that looks like Mark Wahlberg, not the oen that looks like Dhalsim) aka Dominic West aka Billy "The Beaut" Rissoti is a mobster that is very vane and tends to check himself out in the mirror all the time. (Gee, I wonder if he ends up horribly scarred and ugly later in the movie as a half-assed lesson about the dangers of vanity, hmm)

Well the Punisher crashes this big mob party and kills people so quickly and brutally that Jason Voorhees would either be proud or jealous. (He cuts a guy's head off with one swipe from a kabar, I mean I know they're sharp but come on) But Billy gets away and Frank tracks him to a recycling plant.

He then kills, like, fucking everybody and tosses Billy into a big glass recycling machine and turns it on where it strangely enough only tears his face to shit rather than turning him into cole slaw. Naturally he comes back with a vengence, kills some people, holds a woman and child hostage, kidnaps Newman, and has a crazy brother (aptly named Loony Bin Jim as he is in an asylum and is named Jim) who he breaks out. Also there's some Jamaican guy and his partners that figure into this whole mess somehow (It's Maginty from the Punisher Max series but there's really no reason for him to even be in the movie) but they're pretty superflous.

Magnum PInis

Ray Stevenson looks the part of Frank Castle just like Steve Dillon draws him as a weird combination of Steven Seagal and Clive Owen. Unfortunately since Ray Stevenson has all the eloquent speech patterns of Lou Ferigno he doesn't even utter a single word until about 20 minutes into the movie (thus further enforcing the Jason comparison) and seeing as how Ennis' overly tedious monologue that rivaled that of anything from "Sin City" can't be spoken by Frank he reads more like The Saint of Killers with a skull painted on his chest. I'm told Stevenson can act which is why I'm wondering why he didn't do much of it at all during this movie. He mostly just looks alternatively bored or mopey for the entire film. The big problem is we see that Frank was a happy family man but mostly he just seems like a major cunt and you don't believe that he was once a decent guy just maybe a slightly lesser cunt.

Dominic West in much the same way that Heath Ledger beat the hell out of Christian Bale's remarkably unremarkable performance in "The Dark Knight" is the real show stopper here. Jigsaw is waaaaay beyond over the top and even kind of comes close to Ledger's Joker in tone and style. My big problem with West's performance was his accent, his Italian accent sounded fake but then again that may have been intentional given the style of this movie. Jigsaw looks something like a cross between Mason Verger and Leatherface and actually kind of acts like that as well. Jigsaw's origin has been changed to Frank accidently not killing him after dropping him into a glass bottle recycler (because apparently having The Punisher filet his face with a combat knife was deemed too family friendly.)

Doug Hutchinson (AKA the dick-head prison guard from "The Green Mile") plays Jigsaw's brother Loony Bin Jim. If West's accent was bad Hutchinson's is far worse and his job is mainly to kill off characters in the most batshit crazy ways possible and inflict physical harm upon himself, you know, just 'cause. Still, however pointless the character is, Hutchinson plays him well.

Wayne Knight (AKA Newman from Seinfeld) plays Linus Lieberman AKA MicroChip a character that hasn't been seen in the comics since the 90s, mostly because he kinda sucked and was only really there to answer the ever present question of "Where the fuck does he get all these guns?" Thus the character has been relegated to "likeable side-kick who will die before this movie ends." No less, Knight (an actor who I have liked in.... hmm... nothing) actually does a really good job (though he seems to be channeling Penn Jillette) and manages to be likeable (which is no small feat seeing as I hate both character and actor.)

Dash Mihok plays Martin Soap, a character that will be more than familiar to people like me who lovingly recall Garth Ennis' run on Marvel Knights Punisher. Mihok plays the character near perfectly he's just as much of an unlucky doofus as is expected the problem is while the character starts out like he did in the comics we find out he's actually an ally of the Punisher which kinda bothered me (probably more than it should have, really) especially since there obviously won't be a Daredevil around constantly trying to throw Frank in jail.

T.J. Storm plays a Maginity, a lover of parkour who is 1/2 Jamaican and 1/2 Irish (and 1/2 Pirate judging by the horrible accent) and plays a role of no importance at all in this movie. You thought Harry Heck and The Russian were pointless fan-service? You ain't seen nothing yet.

Frank Castle once beat Chuck Norris. To death. With Jean Claude Van Damme.

Okay let's get this out of the way since you cunts are going to whine about this review anyway. The 2004 version was still a better movie. I get to hear oh so much about how "it wasn't really the Punisher" and "Thomas Jane spends most of the movie whining and drinking" and "he spends more time breaking up Howard Saint's marriage than killing people" bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch.

First of all, the 2004 film was an origin story as many times as the Punisher has been changed and brought back his origin has only been covered in detail one time and even that was pretty piss-poor (It was the 70s after all.)

No, Thomas Jane's character was not The Punisher, he was Frank Castle. He didn't actually become the Punisher until the end of the movie (in fact if you would shut your goddamn cock holster and listen Jane's last lines: "Frank Castle is dead, I am The Punisher" spell it out for you in blue crayon) it's a detailing of his journey for revenge ultimately culminating in him losing any spark of compassion and humanity he had left and essentially becoming a modernized version of "The Man With No Name" with just a tiny bit of Travis Bickle sprinkled in there to make it intersting. Yes he drank and he moped and he felt like shit, but come on his entire extended fucking family just died like two months ago give the guy some time for Christ sake. He could have just instantly gone emotionless and became The Punisher but that's something that industry buffs call "Bad writing."

And yes, Frank didn't kill Quentin Glass or Olivia Saint but seeing as neither of them actually killed his family and it was Howard Saint he really had the beef with for calling out the order he was not simply content to kill everyone he loved, he wanted to make it hurt especially bad so he set it up to where Howard did the dirty work and thus realized he had killed the people he loved in cold blood. (It would have had better effect if John Travolta wasn't such a terrible fucking actor.)

Now if you liked Punisher Max, you'll probably like Stevenson. He reads as a Steven Seagal character which is pretty much how Garth Ennis writes Frank Castle. He kills bad people, that's pretty much it. I have never been pleased with that aspect of Ennis' take on the character as it's rather shallow, particularly from a writer who pulled 1/6 of a comic series on the characterization of someone called "Arseface." I've always felt that versioin of the Punisher was weak, but if you're an Ennis fanboy or you just don't like to complicate your action heroes with all those pussy feelings than Stevenson is the man for you. (The honestly Stevenson spends far more time moping around than Jane did, at least Jane had the decency to drink while doing it, half the time I expected Stevenson to be balled up in the corner cranking Linkin Park so hard his ears bled.)

"Punisher: War Zone" is more gory than "Rambo" (I feat I didn't expect to be achieved, at least not this soon), more overstylized than "The Dark Knight", and more over-the top and cheesy than "Shoot 'Em Up."

It's essentially Punisher MAX mixed with the old Punisher: War Journal comics from the 80s and 90s. All the dialogue is horribly written (They actually managed to top "God's gonna sit this one out!") and every single scene is fraut with camp. Of course this isn't a bad thing, but what's troubling is there's a fair amount of the movie that is supposed to be taken seriously.

The style of the writing is almost straight up Garth Ennis, the problem is while that works in print it doesn't work so much in movies. Ennis' style goes from surreally ridiculous to deadly serious in the blink of an eye and while this works in comics it's not so succesful acted out. Oh sure there's a lot of moments that just come as a surprise and crap all over typical action movie traditions but at the same time it uses a fair amount of them. (I swear the director consulted the Steven Seagal Guide to Action Sequences more than once on this one.)

It's also painfully obvious this is a Lionsgate film by the cinematography, the over-the-top gore, and the fact that Jigsaw's origin looks like something out of one of the "Saw" films. It's dark, every frame is usually saturated with a lot of red or green side lighting and if they go five minutes without someone dying horribly then something's wrong.

Much like Tim Bradstreet's art portfolio, google images was filled with nothin but pictures of The Punisher looking broody and ashy all shrouded in shadows.

"Punisher: War Zone" is a fun cheesy action movie that unfortunately aspires to be more than that. It's fun but little else, relying more on guns and gusto than character development or plot, it's too hard to take seriously when you're supposed to. No less it's not a bad movie just not particularly great and it makes me miss Thomas Jane.

I give "Punisher: War Zone" a 4 out of 5. It's worth seeing.

Bolt (2008)


Directed by: Byron Howard and Chris Williams

Starring: John Travolta, Susie Essman, Mark Walton, Miley Cyrus

Other Actors of Note: James Lipton, Malcolm McDowell, Deidrich Bader,

Plot: The canine star of a fictional sci-fi/action show that believes his powers are real embarks on a cross country trek to save his co-star from a threat he believes is just as real. Taken from www.imdb.com.


I already shared my opinion on computer animated films in my "Madagascar 2" review. This is a Disney computer animated film, not to be confused with a Disney/Pixar animated film. Disney is famous for such crap as "Dinosaur", "The Wild", and "Meet the Robinsons."

I went and saw "Bolt" because "Twilight" had already started (and because I didn't really want to see it anyway) and "Transporter 3" wasn't on for another hour. I went in with low expectations and it worked out pretty well for me.

Did you see "Toy Story"? Well then you've pretty much seen "Bolt". It's the story of Bolt (John Travolta) and his owner Penny (Miley Cyrus) who star on a show that seems to be trying really hard to not look exactly like "Kim Possible."

The key to the show's success is that Bolt doesn't know it's a show. He honestly thinks Penny gets in danger every week and he's able to save her. But when an unfortunate turn of events ends with Bolt out in the real world he teams with an unlikely group consisting of a racqueteering cat named Mittens (Susie Essman) and a nerdy hamster in a ball named Rhino (Mark Walton) to go cross-country and be re-united with Penny.


John Travolta is surprisingly good in this. I am deeply dissatisfied with Travolta's performance in every film that hasn't been based on an Elmore Leonard novel (and yes, I'm counting "Pulp Fiction") I find him to be dweeby and annoying but as Bolt he actually fits the part perfectly, something I didn't even begin to see happening.

Miley Cyrus is thankfully not a big part of this movie. She's about as important to the story as Andy was in "Toy Story." She does do a decent job as Penny and manages to not be annoying which is a miracle for the spawn of Billy Ray Cyrus.

Susie Essman, who I have strangely never heard of, does a fairly good job as Mittens, a declawed cat running an extortion operation with some pigeons in New York City. She plays the straight-man Woody to Bolt's delusional Buzz Lightyear.

Finally the real show stealer is Mark Walton (who I swore was Jim Gaffigan by his voice) as Rhino, a nerdy fan-boy hamster who shares Bolt's delusion that the dog's exploits are real. He's the funniest character for sure and one particular scene where Bolt tells him there's a guard and he marches around the corner proclaiming "I'll snap his neck." is one of Rhino's finer moments.


The animation for this show is okay, not great but it doesn't fall under that terrible fucking Dreamworks animation either. It's about the quality of "Toy Story" and "A Bug's Life". However it never becomes a problem, the animation style fits the movie and it works.


"Bolt" is for all intents and purposes just "Toy Story" with pets. Bolt is the Buzz Lightyear character who is trapped in the delusion that he is anything more than an actor while Mittens plays the real pet trying to point out that he's just a dog. Naturally Bolt finds out he's not super and gets all downtrodden and then Mittens teaches him how to be a real dog as they go to find Bolt's owner Penny who he has become lost from.

This fact should not detract from the quality of the film, however. As much as you've already seen it before, it's still fun and interesting if albeit cliched. It's a kid's movie for sure but it's still sprinkled with enough "in" jokes to please older audiences as well. One inparticular involving a trio of pigeons pitching a script idea to Bolt and one saying "Don't get too excited, this is how we lost Nemo" had all the adults and none of the kids in the audience busting out in laughter.

It's a nice return to form for Disney as they haven't had a good animated film since "Treasure Planet" in 2002. There's nothing parituclarly special about it but it never seems to matter.


"Bolt" is probably the best non-Pixar computer animated film made to date. It presents nothing new or exciting but it's still a lot of fun for people of any age.

I give "Bolt" a 5 out of 5. See it.

Australia (2008)

Directed By: Baz Luhrmann

Starring: Hugh Jackman, Nichole Kidman, Brandon Walters, David Wenham

Plot: In northern Australia prior to World War II, an English aristocrat inherits a cattle station the size of Maryland. When English cattle barons plot to take her land, she reluctantly joins forces with a rough-hewn stock-man to drive 2,000 head of cattle across hundreds of miles of the country's most unforgiving land, only to still face the bombing of Darwin, Australia, by the Japanese forces that had attacked Pearl Harbor only months earlier. Taken from www.imdb.com.


If you've done something good even once in your life that's gotten you important enough to have name recognition then from that point on you can pretty much turn out whatever shit you want and people will eat it like hungry dogs. Sony does it, Mike Myers does it, and lets not even get started on Alan Moore.

"Australia" is by all means a movie of great ambition. Throwing caution and common sense to the wind it's a Western, a World War 2 Movie, a Romance, and a Drama, with elements of Comedy thrown in to make it interesting.

Basically there's a small cattle ranch in Australia called Faraway Downs that is the only competition against the local cattle seller. We meet plucky fish out of water Sarah Ashley (Nichole Kidman), Obligatory Man-With-No-Name Drover (Hugh Jackman), adorable kid who is only slightly less annoying than Short Round, Nullah (Brandon Walters), and despicable cattle baron King Carney (Bryan Brown) complete with weasly two-faced henchman Fletcher (David Wenham.)

They have to "drove" cattle (because aparrently in 1940s Australia they had yet to master verb tenses) to a ship for a military order before King Carney can fill his. Naturally some shit goes down, I mean come on the poster involves Hugh Jackman angrilly whipping fire!

However you'll soon find that the movie is very low on fire whipping and in fact has no gunfights, but you know, it works. The movie ends and there's triumph and fun to be had by all, but what's this? The movie isn't over? Well surely this is just an epilogue! FUCK NO IT'S NOT! The film goes on for another hour and at least 6 more endings before the screenwriter finally puts a bullet in its head to stop all its flailing.


Hugh Jackman in the first half of this movie seems to be channeling Clint Eastwood. His character is the typical man with no name who seems to sweat testosterone and bleed lesser men, he even manages to pull off that cock-eyed half-squint Eastwood always does and does the voice nearly perfect. He's the average story, prefers a life of freedom, has compassion for "insert minority here" because his late wife was an "insert minority here." However even when the movie seems to nosedive into the "what the fuck, this is still playing?" zone he manages to be interesting.

Nichole Kidman has admitted that she did not read the script before signing on to the movie and did it simply because Baz Luhrmann was directing. This makes sense as I'm fairly certain that what is in the movie is a cardboard cut-out of Nichole Kidman that's moved around as she reads her lines over the phone. While it's no surprise that Kidman is phoning in her performances at this point (Seeing as how she's been doing it for almost 10 years now) it's somehow more annoying this time.

David Wenham goes from sniveling assistant to main bad guy in the second act of this train wreck. He's menacing but his heart never seems to be in it, perhaps if he were wearing an eye patch and carrying a spear I would have been more enthralled with his performance.

Brandon Walters as Nullah is supposed to be the main character of this piece judging by the fact that he narrates, but honestly the entire movie could exist without him and we'd barely notice. It seems he was kept in more for charisma and cuteness and to detract from Nichole Kidman's atrocious acting.


There's something to be said for telling a story in a quick manner. While I respect directors being uncompromising about their visions I've yet to see a movie that doesn't involve Hobbits nearing the 3 hour mark that didn't have a bunch of uneccesary pointless shit that could have easily been left out. (I'm looking at you "Dark Knight")

The thing is, I didn't just like "Australia", I fucking loved it. It was a new spin on the western formula. Okay sure it was formulaic, just change the setting to Arizona, the time frame to the 1800s, and the Aboriginies to Indians and you've got a Western. The problem is the Western ends and the movie has the audacity to continue.

Now I'll admit I like a good World War 2 movie as much as the next person, I also like a good Drama/Romance as much as the next person. The problem is while the adjectives apply, the word "good." doesn't enter into the picture.

Where the formulaic nature of the narrative was charming for the Western portion of the film it proves tedious and annoying for the latter parts. In fact, Luhrmann might as well have named the movie "Chlich'e." Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, is absolutely 100% predictable and I garuntee you've seen it all in some other movie.

So why are people getting their rocks off and calling the "Casablanca for a new Generation?" The answer you seek lies in whose name is on the directing credit. Now don't get me wrong, "Moulin Rouge!" was great so long as you like musicals and "Romeo + Juliet" is probably the only context in which I have ever enjoyed that particular Shakespeare play. But face it people, Luhrmann got a little too excited, decided to do a little too much and made a movie that really isn't all that good.

After having seen this movie I still have trouble wrapping my mind around how this movie even exists, the entire thing seems like a horribly bad idea and the very concept of someone doing this willingly is disturbing to no end. I'm told you have to be a Baz Luhrmann fan to enjoy this movie, which makes no sense, there's no "style" present here. The movie seems to have been phoned in by the screenwriter, cinematographer, director, and most of the cast.


"Australia" is charming and fun so long as you stop it at the halfway point, otherwise you'll watch a bloated cautionary tale abotu the dangers of being a stuck-up-your-own-arse director being overly ambitious about your movie.

I give "Australia" a 2 out of 5.